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OF .MATHEMATICS

K V r -": r .

LVT?,.ODUCTIOX TO NUTHENIATICAL PHILOSOPHY

KNOWLEDGE: ITS SCOPE AND LIMITS
THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

HISTORY OF WESTERN PHILOSOPHY
T^ri Irzlrszzxt

Clk IC.'C'ATJEDGE OF THE EXTERNAL WORLD

<Tjr*"nr"l( ST"f#*'**i
-,,!;,,-* ^ j.a.-i.',, *

AN OUTLINE OF PHILOSOPHY

.SercTif Ir-.tr^sioTi

THE PHILOSOPHY OF LEIBNIZ

MYSTJGISM AND LOGIC

rnJii Iziprsssicn

IN PRAISE OF IDLENESS
77s >3? Izi

CONQUEST OF HAPPINESS

SCEPTICAL ESSAYS
TKrif Irnprtssicr.

THE SCIENTIFIC OUTLOOK

AND ORGANIZATION 1814-1914

OF SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION

Tei* A Impression

ROADS TO FREEDOM
Eighth Impression

JUSTICE IX WAR-TIME
THOUGHT AND OFFIGL4L PROPAGANDA
THE PROBLEM OF CHINA
OX EDUCATION

EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL ORDER

MARRL\GE AND MORALS

Fifth Impression

P O W E R

Social
Analysis

by
BERTRAND RUSSELL

-*V

7*.

' '" f-'

GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD

:ssx 1930

^ir.^-.'rc X^VEIIBES 193

. iz-irnz,; :!'">" ^SCEHIBER 1932

RTH OTrSZSilZN MAY 1939
JITTH !!,!?? 'ICN IGJ1.O

^ M *^

w i

iimsa <*^^^^ 4

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All ri^Aij

IX GREAT BRITAIN BY
AWIN BROTHERS LTD., WOKING

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ?AGE

I. THE IMPULSE TO POWER 7

II. LEADERS AND FOLLOWERS 15

III. THE FORMS OF POWER 35

IV. PRIESTLY POWER 50
V. KINGLY POWER 75

VI. NAKED POWER 84

VII. REVOLUTIONARY POW r ER 108

VIII. ECONOMIC POWER 123

IX. POWER OVER OPINION 140

X. CREEDS AS SOURCES OF POWER 149

XL THE BIOLOGY OF ORGANIZA-
TIONS 162

XII. POWERS AND FORMS OF GOVERN-
MENTS 185

XIII. ORGANIZATIONS AND THE INDI-

VIDUAL 211

XIV. COMPETITION 222
XV. POWER AND MORAL CODES 237

XVI. POW r ER PHILOSOPHIES 264

XVIL THE ETHICS OF POWER 274

XVIII. THE TAMING OF POWER 285

INDEX 32 1

CHAPTER I

THE IMPULSE TO POWER

BETWEEN man and other animals there are various
differences, some intellectual, some emotional. One
of the chief emotional differences is that some human
desires, unlike those of animals, are essentially bound-
less and incapable of complete satisfaction. The boa
constrictor, when he has had his meal, sleeps until
appetite revives ; if other animals do not do likewise,
it is because their meals are less adequate or because
they fear enemies. The activities of animals, with
few exceptions, are inspired by the primary needs of
survival and reproduction, and do not exceed what
these needs make imperative.

With men, the matter is different. A large pro-
portion of the human race, it is true, is obliged to
work so hard in obtaining necessaries that little
energy is left over for other purposes; but those
whose livelihood is assured do not, on that account,
cease to be active. Xerxes had no lack of food or
raiment or wives at the time when he embarked
upon the Athenian expedition. Newton was certain
of material comfort from the moment when he
became a Fellow of Trinity, but it was after this
that he wrote the Principia. St, Francis and Ignatius
Loyola had no need to found Orders to escape from
want. These were eminent men, but the same charac-
teristic, in varying degrees, is to be found in all but
a small exceptionally sluggish minority. Mrs. A,

POWER

wh- is cu::e we cf her husband's success In business,

workhouse, likes to be better

arr! os no fc-r cf the

then Mrs. B, although she could escape the
cf pneiorcnia a: much less expense. Both she
and "Mr. A are pleased if he Is knighted or elected
to Parliament. In dav-dreams there is no limit to
;ir;2cr:ned triumphs, and if they are regarded as
rcssible, ercrts will be made to achieve them.
Imagination is the scad that forces human beings

' *-"' ^"^

into restless exertion alter their primary needs have
been satitfed. Most cf us have known very few
seine:::; v.hen v,*e could have said:

If it were now to die s
TVere now to be most happy, for I fear
My scul hath her content so absolute
Thae not another comfort like to this
Succeeds in unknown fate.

n cur rare moments of perfect happiness^ it is
aL like Othello, to wish for death, since we

Ixov; that contentment cannot last. What w r e need
for lasting happiness is impossible for human beings :
only Gcd can have complete bliss, for His is "the
Hngdcxn and the power and the glory. 55 Earthly
kingdoms are limited by other kingdoms; earthly
power is cut short by death; earthly glory, though
we build pyramids or be "married to immortal
verse," fades with the passing of centuries. To those
who have but little of power and glory, it may seem
that a little more would satisfy them, but in this they
arc mistaken : these desires are insatiable and infinite,
and only in the infinitude of God could they find
repose*

.a 1*4.

THE IMPULSE TO POWER

While animals are content with existence and
reproduction, men desire also to expand, and their
desires In this respect are limited only by what
imagination suggests as possible. Every man would
like to be God, if it were possible ; some few find it
difficult to admit the impossibility. These are the men
framed after the model of Milton's Satan, combining,
like him, nobility with impiety. By "impiety 33 I
mean something not dependent upon theological
beliefs: I mean refusal to admit the limitations of
individual human power. This Titanic combination
of nobility with impiety is most notable in the great
conquerors, but some element of it is to be found in
all men. It is this that makes social co-operation
difficult, for each of us would like to conceive of it
after the pattern of the co-operation between God
and His worshippers, with ourself in the place of
God. Hence competition, the need of compromise
and government, the impulse to rebellion, with
instability and periodic violence. And hence the need
of morality to restrain anarchic self-assertion.

Of the infinite desires of man, the chief are the
"desires for power and glory. These are not identical,
though closely allied : the Prime Minister has more
power than glory, the King has more glory than
power. As a rule, however, the easiest way to obtain
glory is to obtain power; this is especially the case
as regards the men who are active in relation to
public events.The desire for glory, therefore, prompts,
in the main, the same actions as are prompted by
the desire for power, and the two motives may, for
most practical purposes, be regarded as one.

POWER

The orthodox economists, as wdl as Marx, who

in this respect agreed with them s were mistaken in
surzcskz that economic self-interest could be taken

A <ft '* pi

as the fundamental motive in the social sciences. The
desire for commodities, when separated from power
ar.d elorv. is firute, and can be fully satisfied by a

H^a- A & " * *

moderate competence. The really expensive desires
art not dictated bv a love of material comfort.

Such commodities as a legislature rendered sub-
by corruption, or a private picture gallery
of Old blasters selected by experts^ are sought for
the sake of power or glory, not as affording com-
fortable places in which to sit. When a moderate

of comfort is assured, both individuals and

\& f

communities will pursue power rather than wealth :
they may seek wealth as a means to power, or they
may forgo an increase of wealth in order to secure an

increase of power, but in the former case as in the
latter their fundamental motive is not economic.

This error in orthodox and Marxist economics is

not merely theoretical, but is of the greatest practical

importance, and has caused some of the principal

of recent times to be misunderstood. It is only

by realizing that love of power is the cause of the

that are important in social affairs that

Mstory, whether ancient or modem, can be rightly

interpreted*

In the course of this book I shall be concerned to

that the fundamental concept in social science

ii Power, in the same sense in which Energy is the

concept in physics. Like energy, power

has forms, such as wealth, armaments, civil

THE IMPULSE TO POWER

authority, influence on opinion. No one of these can
be regarded as subordinate to any other, and there
is no one form from which the others are derivative.
The attempt to treat one form of power, say wealth,
in isolation, can only be partially successful, just as
the study of one form of energy will be defective at
certain points, unless other forms are taken into
account. Wealth may result from military power or
from influence over opinion, just as either of these
may result from wealth. The laws of social dynamics
are laws which can only be stated in terms of power,,
not in terms of this or that form of power. In former
times, military power was isolated, with the con-
sequence that victory or defeat appeared to depend
upon the accidental qualities of commanders. In
our day, it is common to treat economic power as
the source from which all other kinds are derived;
this, I shall contend, is just as great an error as that
of the purely military historians whom it has caused
to seem out of date. Again, there are those who
regard propaganda as the fundamental form of
power. This is by no means a new opinion; it is
embodied in such traditional sayings as magna est
veritas et prevalebit and "the blood of the martyrs is
the seed of the Church.' 5 It has about the same
measure of truth and falsehood as the military view
or the economic view. Propaganda, if it can create
an almost unanimous opinion, can generate an irre-
sistible power; but those who have military or
economic control can, if they choose, use it for the
purpose of propaganda. To revert to the analogy of
physics: power, like energy, must be regarded as

POWER

ccctinuallv cas-incr from anv one of its forms Into

& A " **

any rrher. and it should be the business of social
srienre to seek the laws of such transformations.
The attempt to isolate any one form of power,

ir.rrc especially,, in our day, the economic form, has
and still is, a source of errors of great practical

There are manv wars in which different societies

** <*

diiler in relation to power. They differ, to begin with,
in the decree cf power possessed by individuals or
organizations ; it is obvious, for example, that, owing
10 increase of organization, the State has more power
now than in former times* They differ, again, as
K L f ards the kind of organization that is most influential :
a military despotism, a theocracy, a plutocracy, are
very dissimilar tvpes. Thev differ, thirdly, through

* ft * 3 * y o

diversity in the ways of acquiring power : hereditary
kingship produces one kind of eminent man, the
qualities required of a great ecclesiastic produce
another kind, democracy produces a third kind, and
war a fourth.

Where no social institution, such as aristocracy or
hereditary monarchy, exists to limit the number of
to whom power is possible, those who most
power are s broadly speaking, those most likely
to acquire it. It follows that, in a social system in
which power is open to all, the posts which confer
power will, as a rule, be occupied by men who differ
Irorn the average in being exceptionally power-
Jo\ing . Love of power, though one of the strongest
of human motives, is very unevenly distributed, and
is by various other motives, such as love of

THE IMPULSE TO POWER

ease, love of pleasure, and sometimes love of approval.
It is disguised, among the more timid, as an impulse
of submission to leadership, which increases the scope
of the power-impulses of bold men. Those whose love
of power is not strong are unlikely to have much
influence on the course of events. The men who
cause social changes are, as a rule, men who strongly
desire to do so. Love of power, therefore, is a charac-
teristic of the men who are causally important. We
should, of course, be mistaken if we regarded it as
the sole human motive, but this mistake would not
lead us so much astray as might be expected in the
search for causal laws in social science, since love of
power is the chief motive producing the changes
which social science has to study.

The laws of social dynamics are so I shall contend
only capable of being stated in terms of power in
its various forms. In order to discover these laws, it
is necessary first to classify the forms of power, and
then to review various important historical examples
of the ways in which organizations and individuals
have acquired control over men's Eves.

I shall have, throughout, the twofold purpose of
suggesting what I believe to be a more adequate
analysis of social changes in general than that which
has been taught by economists, and of making the
present and the probable near future more intelligible
than it can be to those whose imaginations are
dominated by the eighteenth and nineteenth cen-
turies. Those centuries were in many ways excep-
tional, and we seem to be now returning ? in a
number of respects, to forms of life and thought

POWER

which were prevalent in earlier ages. To understand
cur o"*vr* time and its needs, history, both ancient

mediaeval, is indispensable, for only so can we
arrive at a fens of possible progress not unduly
dominated by the axioms of die nineteenth century.

CHAPTER II

LEADERS AND FOLLOWERS

THE power impulse has two forms; expEcit, in
leaders; implicit, in their followers. When men
willingly follow a leader, they do so with a view to the
acquisition of power by the group which he com-
mands, and they feel that his triumphs are theirs.
Most men do not feel in themselves the competence
required for leading their group to victory, and
therefore seek out a captain who appears to possess
the courage and sagacity necessary for the achieve-
ment of supremacy. Even in religion this impulse
appears. Nietzsche accused Christianity of inculcating
a slave-morality, but ultimate triumph was always
the goal. "Blessed are the meek s for they shall inherit
the eartk" Or as a well-known hymn more explicitly
states it :

The Son of God goes forth to war,

A kingly crown to gain.
His blood-red banner streams afar.

Who follows in His train?

Who best can drink his cup of woe a

Triumphant over pain,
Who patient bears his cross below.

He follows in His train.

If this is a slave-morality, then every soldier of
fortune who endures the rigours of a campaign, and
every rank-and-file politician who works hard at

POWER

e!ccticineerins. :s to be accounted a slave. But In
fart. Ir; ever.' genuinely cooperative enterprise, the
follcwer is scholoically no more a slave than

It is this that makes endurable the Inequalities of
power which organization makes Inevitable, and
which tend to increase rather than diminish as society
crows mere organic.

i ^WM-T

Inequality In the distribution of power has always
in human communities, as far back as our
knowledge extends. This is due partly to external
necessity, parzly to causes which are to be found in
human nature. Most collective enterprises are only
)le if they are directed by some governing
If a house is to be built, some one must decide
on the plans ; if trams are to run on a railway, the
time-table cannot be left to the caprices of engine-
drivers ; if a new road is to be constructed, some one
mast decide where it is to go. Even a democratically
elected government Is still a government, and there-
fore,, on grounds that have nothing to do with
psychology, there must. If collective enterprises axe
to succeed^ be some men who give orders and others
obey them. But the fact that this is possible,
and still more the fact that the actual Inequalities
of power what is made necessary by technical

can only be explained In terms of individual
psychology and physiology. Some men's characters
always to command, others always to
obey; these extremes He the mass of average

beings, who like to command In some situa-
tions* but in other prefer to be subject to a leader.

LEADERS AND FOLLOWERS

Adler, in his book on Understanding Human Nature ^
distinguishes a submissive type and an imperious
type. "The servile individual," he says, "lives by
the rules and laws of others, and this type seeks out
a servile position almost compulsively." On the other
hand, he continues, the imperious type, which asks :
"How can I be superior to everyone?" is found
whenever a director is needed, and rises to the top in
revolutions. Adler regards both types as undesirable,
at any rate in their extreme forms, and he considers
both as products of education. "The greatest dis-
advantage of an authoritative education," he says,
S4 Hes in the fact that it gives the child an ideal of
power, and shows him the pleasures which are
connected with the possession of power/ 3 Authori-
tative education, we may add, produces the slave
type as well as the despotic type, since it leads to the
feeling that the only possible relation between two
human beings who co-operate is that in which one
issues orders and the other obeys them.

Love of power, in various limited forms, is almost
universal, but in its absolute form it is rare. A
woman who enjoys power in the management of
her house is likely to shrink from the sort of political
power enjoyed by a Prime Minister; Abraham
Lincoln, on the contrary, while not afraid to govern
the United States, could not face civil war in the
home. Perhaps Napoleon, if the Bellerophon had
suffered shipwreck, would have tamely obeyed the
orders of British officers as to escaping in boats. Men
like power so long as they believe in their own
competence to handle the business in question, but

B 17

POWER
know themselves incompetent they prefer

The intpulsc of submission, which is just as real
zr;d just as common as the impulse to command,
has ::s roots in fear. The most unruly gang of children
ever imagined will become completely amenable to
the orders of a competent adult in an alarming
>:tua::on ? such as a fire; when the War came, the
ParJdmrsti made their peace with Lloyd George.
Whenever there is acute danger, the impulse of most
rrecple is to seek out Authority and submit to it:

& A *

at 5uch moments, few would dream of revolution.
When war breaks out^ people have similar feelings
towards the Government
OrcarJzaticns may or mav not be desisrned for

'mi* $ di \*J

the purpose of meeting dangers. Economic organiza-
tions in some cases,, such as coal mines, involve
dangers, but these are incidental^ and if they were
eliminated the organizations would flourish all the
better* In general, meeting dangers is no part of
the purpose of economic organizations, or of

governmental organizations concerned with internal
affairs* But life-boats and fire-brigades, like armies

na\ies ? axe constructed for the purpose of meet-
ing In a certain less immediate sense, this
is also true of religious bodies, which exist in part to
the metaphysical fears that are buried deep
IB our nature. If anyone feels inclined to question

let Mm think of such hymns as ;

Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in thee ;

LEADERS AND FOLLOWERS
or

Jesu 3 lover of my

Let me to thy bosom flv.

m 4 *

While the gathering waters roli

While the tempest still is high.

In submission to the Divine Will there is a sense
of ultimate safety, which has led to religious abase-
ment in many monarchs who could not submit to

anv merely earthlv being. All submissiveness is rooted
i . / -

in fear s whether the leader to whom we submit be
human or divine.

It has become a commonplace that aggressiveness
also often has its roots in fear. I am inclined to think
that this theory has been pushed too far. It is true
of a certain kind of aggressiveness, for instance, that
of D. H, Lawrence. But I greatly doubt whether
the men who become pirate chiefs are those who
are filled with retrospective terror of their fathers, or
whether Napoleon, at Austerlitz, really felt that he
was getting even with Madame Mere. I know nothing
of the mother of Attila, but I rather suspect that
she spoilt the little darling 3 who subsequently found
the world irritating because it sometimes resisted
his whims. The type of aggressiveness that is the
outcome of timidity is not, I think, that which
inspires great leaders; the great leaders s I should
say 5 have an exceptional self-confidence which is
not only on the surface, but penetrates deep into
the subconscious,

The self-confidence necessary to a leader may be
caused in various ways. Historically 3 one of the

POWER

cemncnest has been a hereditary position of com-
mand. Readj for example, the speeches of Queen
Elizabeth In moments of crisis: you will see the
monarch over-riding the woman, convincing her,

and through her the nation, that she knows what

u *

must be done, as no mere commoner can hope to do.
In her case,, the Interests of the nation and the sover-
eign were in harmony; that is why she was "Good
Queen Bess." She could even praise her father with-
out arousing indignation. There is no doubt that the
habit of command makes it easier to bear respon-
sibilities and to take quick decisions. A clan which
follows its hereditary chief probably does better
than if it chose its chief by lot. On the other hand,
a body liie the mediaeval church, which chose its
chief en account of conspicuous merits, and usually
after he had had considerable experience of im-
portant administrative posts, secured, on the average,
considerably better results than were secured, in
the same period,, in hereditary monarchies.
Some of the ablest leaders known to history have
in revolutionary situations. Let us consider,
for a moment, the qualities which brought success
to Cromwell, Napoleon, and Lenin. All three, in
difficult times, dominated their respective countries,
and secured the willing service of able men who were
not by nature submissive. All three had boundless
and self-confidence, combined with what
colleagues considered sound judgment at
moments. Of the three, however, Cromwell
aad to one type, and Napoleon

to Cromwell and Lenin were men of pro-

LEADERS AND FOLLOWERS

found religious faith, believing themselves to be
the appointed ministers of a non-human purpose.
Their power-impulses thus seemed to themselves
indubitably righteous, and they cared little for those
rewards of power such as luxury and ease which
could not be harmonized with their identification
with the cosmic purpose. This is specially true of
Lenin, for Cromwell, in his last years, was con-
scious of falling into sin. Nevertheless, in both cases
it was the combination of faith with great ability
that gave them courage, and enabled them to
inspire their followers with confidence in their
leadership.

Napoleon, as opposed to Cromwell and Lenin, is
the supreme example of the soldier of fortune. The
Revolution suited him 3 since it made his oppor-
tunity, but otherwise he was indifferent to it. Though
he gratified French patriotism and depended upon
it, France, like the Revolution, was to him merely
an opportunity; he had even, in his youth, toyed
with the idea of fighting for Corsica against
France, His success was due, not so much to any
exceptional qualities of character, as to his technical
skill in war: when other men would have been
defeated, he was victorious. At crucial moments,
such as the 18 Bnimaire and Marengo, he depended
upon others for success ; but he had the spectacular
gifts that enabled him to annex the achievements
of Ms coadjutors. The French army was full of
ambitious young men ; it was Napoleon*s cleverness,
not his psychology, that gave him the power to suc-
ceed where the others failed. His belief in his

POWER
ed to Ms downfall, was the effect of

To come to cur own day, Hitler must be classed,

ssvchclcslcallv, with Cromwell and Lenin. Musso-
rf - * j

Hni with Xacolecn.

The soldier of fonune,, or pirate chief, is a type of
mere importance in history than is thought by
"scieritiiic" historians. Sometimes, like Napoleon,
he succeeds in making himself the leader of bodies of
men who have purposes that are in part impersonal :
the French revolutionary armies conceived of them-
*elves cs the 'liberators of Europe, and were so
recorded in Italy as well as by many in Western
Germany, but Napoleon himself never brought any
more liberation than seemed useful for his own
career. Very often there is no pretence of impersonal
aims, Alexander may have set to work to hellenize
the East, but it is doubtful whether his Macedonians
were much interested in this aspect of his campaigns.
Roman generals, during the last hundred years of
the Republic, were mainly out for cash, and secured
their soldier's loyalty by distributions of land and
treasure. Cecil Rhodes professed a mystical belief
in the British Empire, but the beHef yielded good
dividends, and the troopers whom he engaged for
die conquest of Matabeleland were offered nakedly
pecuniary inducements. Organized greed, with little
or no disguise, has played a very large part in the
woricTs wars.

The ordinary quiet citizen, we said ? is led largely

by fear when lie submits to a leader. But this can

be true of a gang of pirates, unless no more

LEADERS AND FOLLOWERS

peaceable profession was open to them. When once
the leader's authority is established^ he may inspire
fear in mutinous individuals ; but until he is a leader,
and is recognized as such by the majority, he is not in
a position to inspire fear. To acquire the position
of leader, he must excel in the qualities that confer
authority: self-confidence, quick decision, and skill
in deciding upon the right measures. Leadership is
relative : Caesar could make Antony obey him, but
no one else could. Most people feel that politics is
difficult, and that they had better follow a leader
they feel this instinctively and unconsciously, as
dogs do with their masters. If this were not the case 5
collective political action would scarcely be possible.

Thus love of power, as a motive, is limited by
timidity, which also limits the desire for self-direction.
Since power enables us to realize more of our desires
than would otherwise be possible, and since it secures
deference from others, it is natural to desire power
except in so far as timidity interferes. This sort of
timidity is lessened by the habit of responsibility,
and accordingly responsibilities tend to increase the
desire for power. Experience of cruelty and unfriend-
liness may operate in either direction: with those
who are easily frightened it produces the wish to
escape observation, while bolder spirits are stimu-
lated to seek positions in which they can inflict
cruelties rather than suffer them.

After anarchy, the natural first step is despotism,
because this is facilitated by the instinctive mechan-
isms of domination and submission; this has been
illustrated in the family, in the State, and in business.

POWER

Equal co-operation is much more difficult than
despctisin, and much less in line with instinct.
\Vhcn inen attempt equal co-operation, it is natural
for each to strive for complete mastery, since the
submissive impulses are not brought into play.
It is almost necessary that all the parties concerned
should acknowledge a common loyalty to something
.C'Utaiie all of them. In China, family businesses often
succeed because of Confucian loyalty to the family;
but impersonal joint-stock companies are apt to
prove unwcrkab!e,because no one has any compelling
motive for honesty towards the other shareholders.
ere there is government by deliberation, there
:ust ? for success, be a general respect for the law,
cr for the nation, or for some principle which all
parties respect. The Society of Friends, when any
doubtful matter has to be decided, do not take a vote
and abide by the majority ; they discuss until they
arrive at ""the sense of the meeting," which used
be regarded as prompted by the Holy Spirit. In
case we are concerned with an unusually
homogeneous community, but without some degree
of homogeneity government by discussion is un-

A of solidarity sufficient to make government
by possible can be generated without

difficulty in a family, such as the Fuggers or
Rothschilds, in a small religious body such as the
Quakers, in a barbarous tribe, or in a nation at war
or m danger of war. But outside pressure is all but
indispensable : the members of a group hang together
for fear of hanging separately. A common peril is

LEADERS AND FOLLOWERS

much the easiest way of producing homogeneity.
This, however, affords no solution of the problem of
power in the world as a whole. We wish to prevent
the perils e.g. war which at present cause cohesion,
but we do not wish to destroy social co-operation.
This problem is difficult psychologically as well as
politically, and if we may judge by analogy, it is
likely to be solved, if at all, by an initial despot-
ism of some one nation. Free co-operation among
nations, accustomed as they are to the liberum veto, is
as difficult as among the Polish aristocracy before the
Partition. Extinction, in this case as in that, is likely
to be thought preferable to common sense. Mankind
need government, but in regions where anarchy
has prevailed they will, at first, submit only to
despotism. We must therefore seek first to secure
government, even though despotic, and only when
government has become habitual can we hope
successfully to make it democratic. "Absolute power
is useful in building the organization. More slow,
but equally sure, is the development of social pressure
demanding that the power shall be used for the
benefit of all concerned. This pressure, constant in
ecclesiastical and political history, is already making
its appearance in the economic field. 551

I have spoken hitherto of those who command and
those who obey, but there is a third type, namely,
those who withdraw. There are men who have the
courage to refuse submission without having the
imperiousness that causes the wish to command.

1 Berle and Means, The Modem Corporation and Private
Property, p. 353. They are speaking of industrial corporations.

POWER

Such men do net fit readily into the social structure,
&M in cue way or another they seek a refuge where
they can enjoy a more or less solitary freedom. At
times* men with this temperament have been of
sre*it histC'rica! importance ; the early Christians and

the .American dcneers represent two species of the

i, i *

cervus. Sometimes the rexiige is mental, sometimes
phy-:cal: sometimes it demands the complete
solitude cf a henrJtage, sometimes the social solitude
cf a monastery. Among mental refugees are those
^:;o ce'.ong to obscure sects, those whose interests
are decreed by innocent fads, and those who occupy
themselves with recondite and unimportant forms
cf erudition, Among physical refugees are men who
seek trie frontier of civilization^ and such explorers
as Bates, the ""naturalist on the Amazon/' who lived
happily fir fifteen years without other society than
the Indians, Something of the hermit's temper is
an essential element in many forms of excellence^
since it enables men to resist the lure of popularity,
to important work in spite of general indif-

ference cr hostility, and to arrive at opinions which
are opposed to prevalent errors.
Of those who withdraw, some are not genuinely
to power,, but only unable to obtain it by
the usual methods. Such men may become saints or
founders of monastic orders or of new
in art or literature. They attach to themselves
as disciples people who combine a love of submission
an Impulse to revolt; the latter prevents ortho-
dcxy, while the former leads to uncritical adoption
of the new tenets, Tolstoy and his followers illustrate

LEADERS AND FOLLOWERS

this pattern. The genuine solitary is quite different.
A perfect example of his type is the melancholy
Jacques, who shares exile with the good Duke
because it is exile, and afterwards remains in the
forest with the bad Duke rather than return to Court.
Many American pioneers,, after suffering long hard-
ship and privation, sold their farms and moved
further West as soon as civilization caught up with
them. For men of this temperament, the world
affords fewer and fewer opportunities. Some drift
into crime, some into a morose and anti-social
philosophy. Too much contact with their fellow-men
produces misanthropy, which, when solitude is
unattainable, turns naturally towards violence.

Among the timid, organization is promoted, not
only by submission to a leader, but by the reassurance
which is felt in being one of a crowd who all feel alike.
In an enthusiastic public meeting with whose purpose
one is in sympathy, there is a sense of exaltation,
combined with warmth and safety: the emotion
which is shared grows more and more intense until
it crowds out all other feelings except an exultant
sense of power produced by the multiplication of
the ego. Collective excitement is a delicious intoxi-
cation, in which sanity, humanity, and even self-
preservation are easily forgotten, and in which
atrocious massacres and heroic martyrdom are
equally possible. This kind of intoxication, like others,'
is hard to resist when its delights have once been
experienced, but leads in the end to apathy and
weariness, and to the need for a stronger and stronger
stimulus if the former fervour is to be reproduced.

POWER

Although a leader is not essential to this emotion,
v.'hich can be produced by music, and by some
exctinz event which is seen bv a crowd, the words

A, r >

of an orator are the easiest and most usual method

<'"f inducins 1 It. The pleasure of collective excitement
' ..

is. therefore, an important element in the power of
leaders. The leader need not share in the feelings
which he arouses; he may say to himself, like

XD T ,V let it work : mischief, thou art afoot,
Take then what course thou -wilt !

But the leader is hardly likely to be successful
;rues3 he enjoys Ms power over his followers. He will
:herefi;re be led to a preference for the kind of situa-
ion, and the kind of mob, that makes his success easy.
The best situation is one in which there is a danger
sntly serious to make men feel brave in com-
; it, but not so terrifying as to make fear
predominant such a situation, for example, as the
outbreak of war against an enemy who is thought
formidable but not invincible. A skilful orator, when
he to stimulate warlike feeling, produces in

his audience two layers of belief: a superfidaUayer,
in which the power of the enemy ^magnified so as
to great courage seem necessary, and a deeper

layer, in which there is a firm conviction of victory.
Both Urc embodied in such a slogan as "right will
prevail over might."

The Mud of mob that the orator will desire is one
more given to emotion than to reflection, one filled

with fears and consequent hatreds, one impatient of

LEADERS AND FOLLOWERS

slow and gradual methods, and at once exasperated
and hopeful. The orator, if he is not a complete
cynic, will acquire a set of beliefs that justify Ms
activities. He will think that feeling is a better guide
than reason, that our opinions should be formed with
the blood rather than the brain, that the best
elements in human life are collective rather than
individual. If he controls education, he will make it
consist of an alternation of drill and collective intoxi-
cation, while knowledge and judgment will be left
to the cold devotees of inhuman science.

Power-loving individuals, however, are not all of
the orator type. There are men of quite a different
kind, whose love of power has been fed by control
over mechanism. Take, for example, Bruno Musso-
lini's account of his exploits from the air in the
Abyssinian war:

"We had to set fire to the wooded hills, to the
fields and little villages. ... It was all most diverting.
. . . The bombs hardly touched the earth before they
burst out into white smoke and an enormous flame
and the dry grass began to burn. I thought of the
animals : God, how they ran . . . After the bomb-
racks were emptied I began throwing bombs by
hand. ... It was most amusing: a big Zariba
surrounded by tall trees was not easy to hit. I had to
aim carefully at the straw roof and only succeeded at
the third shot. The wretches who were inside, seeing
their roof burning, jumped out and ran off like mad.

"Surrounded by a circle of fire about five thousand
Abyssinians came to a sticky end. It was like hell. 35

While the orator needs much intuitive psychology

POWER

fcr

hn success, the abater of Bruno Mussolini's type
can get hi* pleasure with no more psychology than
is kvelved in knowing that it is unpleasant to burn
to death. The orator is an ancient type; the man
whcse rover is based on mechanism is modern.

Not wholly: ready for example, how Carthaginian
elephants were used, at the end of the first Punic

* *

War, to trarsple mutinous mercenaries to death,
where tie rsvchclosrv* though not the science, is the

,4k. * I*-* irf * O" +

as Brano Mussolini's. 1 But speaking compara-
tively, mechanical power is more characteristic of
our age than of any previous time.

The psychology of the oligarch who depends upon
mechanical reiver is not, as yet., anywhere fuUy
developed. It is, however, an imminent possibility,
and quantitatively, though not qualitatively, quite
ne-iv, It \vculd now be feasible for a technically
trained oligarchy, by controlling aeroplanes, navies,
power stations, motor transport, and so on, to
establish a dictatorship demanding almost no con-
ciliation of subjects. The empire of Laputa was
maintained by its power of interposing itself between
the sun and a rebellious province ; something almost
equally drastic would be possible for a union of
scientific technologists. They could starve a recal-
region, and deprive it of light and heat and
power after encouraging dependence on
of comfort ; they could flood it with
gas or with bacteria. Resistance would be
hopeless. And the men in control, having been
Dicdoms Sicutos, Bk. XXV (fragment). See Flaubert's

LEADERS AND FOLLOWERS

trained on mechanism^ would view human material

as thev had learnt to view their own machines.

f '

as something unfeeling governed by laws which the
manipulator can operate to Ms advantage. Such a
regime would be characterized bv a cold inhumanity

O * '

surpassing anything known in previous tyrannies.

Power over men, not power over matter, is my
theme in this book ; but it is possible to establish a
technicological power over men which is based upon
power over matter. Those who have the habit of
controlling powerful mechanisrns s and through this
control have acquired power over human beings,
may be expected to have an imaginative outlook
towards their subjects which \vill be completely
different from that of men who depend upon
persuasion, however dishonest. Most of us have, at
some time, wantonly disturbed an ants 5 nest, and
watched with mild amusement the scurrying con-
fusion that resulted. Looking down from the top of
a sky-scraper on the traffic of New York, the human
beings below cease to seem human, and acquire a
faint absurdity. If one were armed, like Jove, with
a thunderbolt, there would be a temptation to hurl
it into the crowd, from the same motive as in the
case of the ants' nest. This was evidently Bruno
Mussolini's feeling, as he looked down upon the
Abyssinians from his aeroplane. Imagine a scientific
government which, from fear of assassination, lives
always in aeroplanes, except for occasional descents
on to landing stages on the summits of high towers or
rafts on the sea. Is it likely that such a government
will have any profound concern for the happiness

POWER

of its subjects? Is it not, on the contrary, practi-
cally certain that It will view them, when all goes
well, in the impersonal manner in which it views
its machines, bni that, when anything happens to
suggest that after all they are not machines, it will
feel the cold rage of men whose axioms are questioned
bv underlines, and will exterminate resistance in

whatever manner involves least trouble?

All tHsj the reader may think, is mere unnecessary
nightmare. 1 wish I could share this view. Mechan-
ical power, I am convinced, tends to generate a new
mentality,, which makes it more important than in
any former age to find ways of controlling govern-
ments. Democracy may have become more difficult
owing to technical developments^ but it has also
become more important. The man who has vast
mechanical power at his command is likely, if
uncontrolled^ to feel himself a god not a Christian
God of Love,, but a pagan Thor or Vulcan,

Lcopardi describes what volcanic action has
achieved OE the slopes of Vesuvius :

These lands that now are strewn

With sterilizing cinders, and embossed

With lava frozen to stone s

That echoes to the lonely pilgrim's foot;

Where nestling in 'the sun the snake lies coiled,

And where in some cleft

In cavernous rocks the rabbit hurries home

Here once were happy farms,
And tilth, and yellowing harvests, and the sound
Of lowing herds ; here too
Gardens and palaces:
32

LEADERS AXD FOLLOWERS

Retreats dear to the leisure

Of powerful lords ; and here were famous towns,

\Vhich the implacable mountain^ tiiunderiiig forth
Molten streams from Its fiery mouth, destroyed

With ail their habitants. Xow all around
Lies crushed 'neath one vast rain. 1

These results can now be achieved by men. They
have been achieved at Guernica; perhaps before
long they will be achieved where as yet London
stands. What good is to be expected of an oligarchy
which will have climbed to dominion through such
destruction? And if it were Berlin and Rome^ not
London and Paris 3 that were destroyed by the thun-
derbolts of the new gods, could any humanity survive
in the destroyers after such a deed? Would not those

eat

1 Questi campi cosparsi
Di ceneri infecGnde 3 e ricoperti
DalF impletrata lava,
Che sotto i passl al peregrin risona ;
Dove s'aimida e si contorce al sole
La serpe, e dove al noto
Cavemoso covil toma il coniglio ;
Fur liete ville e cold,
E biondeggiar di spiche, e risonaro
Di muggito d'annenti ;
Fur giardini e palagi,
Agli ozl de* potenti
Gradito ospizio ? e fur citta famose a
Che coi torrenti suoi 1* altero monte
Dail 3 ignea bocca fuiminando oppresse
Con gli abitanti insieme. Or tutto intorno
Una ruina involve.

I owe the above translation to the kindness of my friend,
Mr. R. C. TrevelyaiL

c 33

POWER

who Lad human feelings to begin with be driven
mad bv suppressed pin- and become even worse

in. at i i. * *

than these who had no need of suppressing their

cornsasiion?
,.

In former days, men sold themselves to the Devil
to acquire magical powers, Xow-a-days they acquire
these powers from science, and find themselves com-
pelled ;o become devils. There is no hope for the
world unless power can be tamed, and brought into
the service, not of this or that group of fanatical
tyrants, but of the whole human race, white and
yellow and black, fascist and communist and demo-
crat ; for science has made it inevitable that all must
live or all must die.

CHAPTER III

THE FORMS OF POWER

POWER may be defined as the production of Intended
effects. It is thus a quantitative concept : given two
men with similar desires ? if one achieves all the
desires that the other achieves, and also others, he
has no more power than the other. But there is no
exact means of comparing the power of two men
of whom one can achieve one group of desires, and
another another; e.g. given two artists of whom each
wishes to paint good pictures and become rich, and
of whom one succeeds in painting good pictures and
the other in becoming rich, there is no way of
estimating which has the more power. Nevertheless,
it is easy to say, roughly, that A has more power
than B, if A achieves manv intended effects and B

f f

only a few.

There are various ways of classifying the forms of
power, each of which has its utility. In the first place,
there is power over human beings and power over
dead matter or non-human forms of life. I shall be
concerned mainly with power over human beings, but
it will be necessary to remember that the chief cause
of change in the modem world is the increased power
over matter that we owe to science.

Power over human beings may be classified by
the manner of influencing individuals, or by the type
of organization involved.

An individual may be influenced: A. By direct

..(p.

* n. "

POWER

ower ever his bocy, e.g. when he Is im-
:-.::ied cr killed: B. By rewards and punishments
hiducements, e.g. In giving or withholding
bvment : C. Bv influence on oplnion 3 Le.

ai & M a> *

r-rcr^rarjizi in Its hrcadest sense. Under this last
head I should include the opportunity for creating

w *ff

ct,v:rt j a nsbits in ethers,, e.g. by military drill, the

r,'~ Iv difference being that in such cases action follows
nt anv such mental intermediary as could be

:tr:c

>ML

These forms of power are most nakedly and simply
spiayed in cur dealings with animals, where
ises and pretences are not thought necessary.
"i 3, Z'-T wis.ii 3 rc~pe round us niidcLic is iioisteci
squealing ;r-:o a ship, it is subject to direct physical
pouer over 115 bodv. On the other hand, when the

r * *

proverbial donkey follows the proverbial carrot,
we induce him to act as we wish by persuading him
that it is to his interest to do so. Intermediate between
these two cases is that of performing animals, in
%bom habits have been formed by rewards and
punishments ; also,, in a different way, that of sheep
induced to embark on a sMp, when the leader has
to be the gangway by force, and the

i follow willingly.
All of power are exemplified among

The case of the pig illustrates military and police

with the carrot typifies the power of

propaganda.

A 4 W*

Performing the power of "education."

THE FORMS OF POWER

The sheep following their unwilling leader are
illustrative of part}' politics, whenever, as is usual,

a revered leader is in bondage to a clique or to party
bosses.

Let us apply these Aesopian analogies to the rise
of Hitler. The carrot was the Nazi programme
'involving, e.g., the abolition of interest) ; the donkey
was the lower middle class. The sheep and their
leader were the Social Democrats and Hindenburg.
The pigs ''only so far as their misfortunes are con-
concerned; were the victims in concentration camps,
and the performing animals are the millions who
make the Xazi salute.

The most important organizations are approxi-
mately distinguishable by the kind of power that they
exert. The army and the police exercise coercive
power over the body; economic organizations, in
the main, use rewards and punishments as incentives
and deterrents; schools, churches, and political
parties aim at influencing opinion. But these dis-
tinctions are not very clear-cut, since every organiza-
tion uses other forms of power in addition to the one
which is most characteristic.

The power of the Law will illustrate these com-
plexities. The ultimate power of the Law is the
coercive power of the State. It is the characteristic
of civilized communities that direct physical coercion
is (with some limitations) the prerogative of the
State, and the Law is a set of rules according to
which the State exercises this prerogative in dealing
with its own citizens. But the Law uses punishment,
not only for the purpose of making undesired actions

POWER

, <* t t (B,.^}**-^, it f- (**,-; 'pin*- T. <7 jp ^ 3 ^ ^l 'Tl

- w* jL*'Lj t iiU.ilk<L<. C5.i *_ fcZ w?J-

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55 >

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.: :::*;- pc.ice, iiie degree or feeling in favour
L- r-ne cf tlie most important characteristics

"''"< TV
*.-,. _*,"_,, *

of hat :

:i;5 brir*i : us to a very necessary distinction,
<een trad;:::r.al power and newly acquired
er, IrridltlC'^cJ pcr^er has on its side the force
it does not have to justify itself at every
moment ncr to prove continually that no opposition
is strong enough to overthrow it. Moreover it is
almost invariably associated with religious or quasi-
reh'qious beliefs purporting to show that resistanceis
wicked. It can, accordingly, rely upon public opinion
to* a much mater degree than Is possible for revolu-
rionary or usurped power. This has two more or less
opposite consequences : on the one hand, traditional
power, since it feels secure, is not on the look-out
for traitors, and is likely to avoid much active
political tyranny ; on the other hand, where ancient
institutions persist, the injustices to which holders of
power are always prone have the sanction of im-
rntnicrial custom, and can therefore be more
glaring tran would be possible under a new form of

THE FORMS OF POWER

sovemment which hoped to win popular support.
The reign of terror In France illustrates the revolu-
tionary kind of tyranny, the corvee the traditional

kind.

Power not based on tradition or assent I call
"naked" power. Its characteristics differ greatly
from those of traditional power. And where tradi-
tional power persists, the character of the regime
depends, to an almost unlimited extent, upon its
feeling of security or insecurity.

Naked power is usually military, and may take
the form either of internal tyranny or of foreign
conquest. Its importance, especially in the latter
form, is very great indeed greater, I think, than
many modern '"'scientific 53 historians are willing to
admit. Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar
altered the whole course of history by their battles.
But for the former, the Gospels would not have been
written in Greek, and Christianity could not have
been preached throughout the Roman Empire. But
for the latter, the French would not speak a language
derived from Latin, and the Catholic Church could
scarcely have existed. The military superiority of
the white man to the American Indian is an even
more undeniable example of the power of the sword.
Conquest by force of arms has had more to do with
the spread of civilization than any other single agency.
Nevertheless, military power is, in most cases, based
upon some ether form of power, such as wealth,
or technical knowledge, or fanaticism. I do not
suggest that this is always the case ; for example, in
the War of the Spanish Succession Marlborough's

* tfl

U3 iAJ 1

to
*, but

t f . J T "IT*

:;v a rr, ,:,.ut: ',:;.rv aut^Dnty ecnimancmg tiie willing
of tie nudity or a large minority of the
,t::n, Sc it ivas, for example^ in America in

r's authoritv

r K ^ ?-* , 1|

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* *,,A!,^* *wm_iC5-3 % 4M uuU A-*viCjti ***'-*i C l?J <lodCl4.C LlioLil

cr;:2. A re*,'olutionary authority 3 if it is to succeed
in sstabl;.*h:r.5 Itself \viihcut much use of naked
pox'tr, requires much more vigorous and active
popular suppc-rt than, is needed by a traditional
authority, \\lien the Chinese Republic was pro-
claizr.td in ici I 3 tlie men of foreign education decreed
a pariiameritary Constitutions but the public was
apathetic, and the regime quickly became one of
naked power under waning Tuchuns (military
governors > Such unity as was afterwards achieved
by the KuoMIn-Tang depended on nationalism^
not parliamentarianisni. The same sort of thing has

happened frequently in Latin America, In all these
cases, the authority of Parliament, if it had had

sufficient popular support to succeeds would have
revolutionary; but the purely ^military power
which was in fact victorious was naked.

The distinction between traditional, revolutionary,
and power is psychological. I do not cal power

traditional merely because it has ancient forms : it

4/3

THE FORMS OF POWER

must also command respect which is partly due to
custom. As this respect decays^ traditional power
gradually passes over into naked power. The process
was to be seen in Russia in the gradual growth of the
revolutionary movement up to the moment of its
victory in 1917.

I call power revolutionary when it depends upon
a large group united by a new creed, programme,
or sentiment., such as Protestantism, Communism,
or desire for national independence. I call power
naked when it results merely from the power-loving
impulses of individuals or groups > and wins from its
subjects only submission through fear, not active
co-operation. It will be seen that the nakedness of
power is a matter of degree. In a democratic country,
the power of the government is not naked in relation
to opposing political paities a but is naked in relation
to a convinced anarchist. Similarly,, where persecution
exists, the power of the Church is naked in relation
to heretics., but not in relation to orthodox sinners.

Another division of our subject is between the
power of organizations and the power of individuals.
The way in which an organization acquires power
is one thing, and the way in which an individual
acquirespowerwithinanorganizationis quite another.
The two are. of course, interrelated : if you wish to be
Prime Minister, you must acquire power in your
Party, and your Party must acquire power in the nation.
But if you had lived before the decay of the hereditary
principle, you would have had to be the heir of a
king in order to acquire political control of a nation ;
this would, however, not have enabled you to

? C \v E E

*ther rations, for which yon would have
:;u:,l:tiei th:it i:ir.* sens often lack. In the

,. ,1 * T^ * J " J_1

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r:*:,:?

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a* * -"T-", j*

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If !(-' "C" 'T",

wr.om irencn Socialists

*h'v* -.air/: i rree ;f permanence as they formerly

en tr.r,.: e?, because they have failed to cause
' . T ^ , ^ . ' 4 , . . , , , , rr - 1 ^

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tgh

P- Si iB^em^w -fl-^B

its prcmiritnt incu^icuals, ana derives its apparent
character fr^m the character of these men. As the
Qualities required fjr acliievins: prominence change.

* i ~ sr o

so tic prominent men change. It is to be presumed
that there were men like Lenin in the twelfth century,
that there are men like Richard Cceur de Lion
at the present time; but history does not know
of them. Let us consider for a moment the kinds
of individuals produced by different types of

Hereditary power has given rise to our notion of
a **gentlexnan." This is a scmewhat degenerate form

Wts J>

of a conception which has a long history, from magic
of chiefs, through the divinity of kings, to
lightly chivalry and the blue-blooded aristocrat.

THE FORMS OF POWER

The qualities which axe admired, where power is
hereditary, are such as result from leisure and un-
questioned superiority. Where power is aristocratic
rather than monarchical, the best manners include
courteous behaviour towards equals as an addition
to bland self-assertion in dealing with inferiors. But
whatever the prevalent conception of manners may
be, it is only where power is (or lately was) hereditary
that men will be judged by their manners. The
bourgeois gentilhomme is only laughable when he
intrudes into a society of men and women who have
never had anything better to do than study social
niceties. What survives in the way of admiration of
the "gentleman" depends upon inherited wealth,
and must rapidly disappear if economic as well as
political power ceases to pass from father to son.

A very different type of character comes to the
fore where power is achieved through learning or
wisdom, real or supposed. The two most important
examples of this form of power are traditional China
and the Catholic Church. There is less of it in the
modern world than there has been at most times in
the past; apart from the Church, in England, very
little of this type of power remains. Oddly enough,
the power of what passes for learning is greatest in
the most savage communities, and steadily decreases
as civilization advances. When I say 'learning" I
include, of course, reputed learning, such as that
of magicians and medicine men. Twenty years of
study are required in order to obtain a Doctor's
Degree at the University of Lhassa, which is necessary
for all the higher posts except that of Dalai Lama.

POWER

This ::<-;:::>:; is ir/dch what it was in Europe in the

PC re Silvester II was reputed a
! he read books, and was conse-
.ncrease the pcwer of the Church
bv irjzirir.z ir.ctnphysical terrors.

:al. as we know him, is a spiritual

::uer;rv ae

ccc

descendant of the priest; but the spread of education
has robbed hirr. of power. The power of the intel-
lectual depends upon superstition: reverence for a
tradlticnal incantation or a sacred book. Of these,
i-C'tnethiiL:: survives in English-speaking conntries 3 as
seer* in the English attitude to the Coronation
rvice and the American reverence for the Con-
itudor.; accordingly, the Archbishop of Canterbury
and the Supreme Court Judges still have some of the

traditional cower of learned men. But this is only

a pale ghost of the power of Egyptian priests or
Chinese Confucian scholars.

While the typical virtue of the gentleman is
honour, that of the man who achieves power through
learning is wisdom. To gain a reputation for wisdom
a man must to have a store of recondite know-
ledge, a mastery over Ms passions, and a long ex-
perience of the ways of men. Age alone is thought
to of these qualities; hence "pres-

$"%% Wtyf !$$& Tjf 1 * J? r jE&L'fl J 1 'V^f p ^ SfflSk^l ^S "9* ^"S I J^T! ^2i V^f^^i T3I TCTI "i n j^S rffc f J^B dCfc^^ ^3 "f'll-fc

Dytcij, iOgnciiij, tfticicnndiiij ana. eider djrc
of respect. A Chinese beggar addresses passers-
by as "great old sire" But where the power of wise
is organized,, there is a corporation of priests or
literati, whom all wisdom is held to be con-

centrated. The is a very- different type of charac-
ter from the knightly warrior, and produces, where

THE FORMS OF POWER

he rules, a very different society. China and Japan
illustrate the contrast.

We have already noted the curious fact that,
although knowledge plays a larger part in civiliza-
tion BOW than at any former time, there has not been
any corresponding growth of power among those
who possess the new knowledge. Although the elec-
trician and the telephone man do strange things that
minister to our comfort (or discomfort), we do not
regard them as medicine-men, or imagine that they
can cause thunderstorms if we annoy them. The
reason for this is that scientific knowledge, though
difficult^ is not mysterious, but open to ail who care
to take the necessary trouble. The modern intel-
lectual, therefore, inspires no awe, but remains a
mere employee; except in a few cases, such as the
Archbishop of Canterbury, he has failed to inherit
the glamour which gave power to Ms predecessors.

The truth is that the respect accorded to men of
learning was never bestowed for genuine knowledge,
but for the supposed possession of magical powers.
Science, in giving some real acquaintance with
natural processes, has destroyed the belief in magic,
and therefore the respect for the intellectual. Thus
it has come about that, while men of science are the
fundamental cause of the features which distinguish
our time from former ages, and have, through then-
discoveries and inventions, an immeasurable influ-
ence upon the course of events, they have not, as
individuals, as great a reputation for wisdom as may
be enjoyed in India by a naked fakir or in Melanesia
by a medicine-man. The intellectuals, finding their

POWER

their own

XL ',;:;? ;:* "-,1.:": :h: dli^ziifbctiori is least take to

n k goes deeper shut

*" f" <

* J-* '' ' * "

I*, .& , ^ i

1-1

f large economic organizations has

. typ t cf powerful Individual : the
;e is called In America. The typical
resses others as a man of rapid

, and iron will ;

Vi
i:

,.* -5 T* T* r"* *r * *p ^,Ap|-4"s HP inmcf 1 TIP*

Ji fit HUB. wiit ffMvidft rft^Bpi (fcA.Jfl ^ A*.* A. fe HUii B! U^ ^rf Ikrf ^taHji-4* JL -i,\J JLJL. JL 4-nfc.ibJ L< */ X^

*irc respect in equals^ and confidence in
s v,l;o are by no means nonentities. He

FS'W ** # ^ If

IT,UJ: ^.::a.L:,riC ::;e q unities ol a great general and
a cr rj .,,t ci^Icrriaiisr: rizthlessness in battle, but a
cap rid ty for skllfil concession in negotiation. It is
L> sach quail lies that men acquire control of im-

^ *

jxrunt econ'crinc organizations.

Political pcv^er, in a democracy, tends to belong to
men of a type v.LIdi differs considerably from the
three that we have considered hitherto. A politician,,
if he is- to succeed, must be able to win the confidence
of his machine, and then to arouse some degree of
enthusiasm in a majority of the electorate. The
qualities required for these two stages on the road to

wer are by no means identical, and many men
the one without the other. Candidates for
the Presidency in the United States are not infre-
quently men mho cannot stir the imagination of the
genera! public, though they possess the art of
ingraaating themselves with party managers. Such

iHE FORMS OF POWER

n:e:: are. us a rule, defeated, but the party managers
dj r.o: foresee their defeat. Sometimes, however, the
machine is able to secure the victory of a^ man
without "magnetism" ; in such cases, it dominates
him after his election 5 and he never achieves real
cawer. Sometimes, on the contrary, a man is able to
create his own machine; Napoleon III, Mussolini,
and Hitler are examples of this. More commonly,
a really successful politician, though lie uses an
already existing machine, is able ultimately to
dominate it and" make it subservient to his will.

The qualities which make a successful politician
in a democracy vary according to the character of
the times ; they are not the same in quiet times as they
are during war or revolution. In quiet times, a man
may succeed by giving an impression of solidity and
sound judgment, but in times of excitement some-
thing more is needed. At such times, it is necessary
to be an impressive speaker not necessarily eloquent
in the conventional sense, for Robespierre and Lenin
were not eloquent s but determined 3 passionate, and
bold. The passion may be cold and controlled,
but must exist and be felt. In excited times, a
politician needs no power of reasoning, no appre-
hension of impersonal facts, and no shred of wisdom.
What he must have is the capacity of persuading
the multitude that what they passionately desire is
attainable, and that he a through his ruthless deter-
mination, is the man to attain it.

The most successful democratic politicians are
those who succeed in abolishing democracy and
becoming dictators. This, of course, is only possible

POWER

.-:rtur.

rairrstances : no cue could have achieved
senth-cermiry England, But when it is
requires cnly a high degree of the same
qual;::^; :.- are required by democratic politicians in
crsncral., a: any rate in excited nines. Lenin, Musso-
lini, rind Hitler owed their rise to democracy,

When once a dictatorship has been established, the
qualities by which a man succeeds a dead dictator
*4ie :-j:aIIy different from those by which the dictator-
>.iip T AS.S cnginaily created. Wire-pulling, intrigue
and Court favour are the most important methods
whsn heredity is discarded. For this reason, a
ciiaitCTiHp is sure to change its character very
coniideriibly after the death of its founder. And since
:r:e qualities by which a man succeeds to a dictator-
ship are less generally impressive than those by which
the regime was created, there is a likelihood of
instability, palace revolutions, and ultimate reversion
to some different system. It is hoped, however, that
methods of propaganda may successfully
counteract this tendency, by creating popularity
for the of the State without the need for any

display of popular qualities on his part. How far such
can succeed it is as yet impossible to say.
There is one form of the power of individuals which
we liave not yet considered, namely, power behind
the : the power of courtiers, intriguers, spies,

and wire-pullers. In every large organization, where
the men in control have considerable power, there
arc other less prominent men (or women) who
acquire influence over the leaders by personal
methods. Wire-pullers and party bosses belong to the

THE FORMS OF POWER

/e achieved s n:e IVDC, though their technique is different. They

when It Is p^r their friends, quietly, Into key positions, and so,

<f the same in time, control the organization. In a dictatorship

iliticians in v.iich is not hereditary 7 , such men may hope to

in, Musso- succeed to the dictator when he dies ; but In general

i acy, they prefer not to take the front of the stage. They

)lished, the are men who love power more than glory; often

id dictator they are socially timid. Sometimes, like eunuchs In

ie dictator- Oriental monarchies, or kings' mistresses elsewhere,

;, Intrigue, they are ; for one reason or another, debarred from

:t methods titular leadership. Their Influence is greatest where

reason, a nominal power is hereditary, and least where It is

acter very the reward of personal skill and energy. Such men,

And since however, even in the most modern forms of govem-

i dictator- mem, inevitably have considerable power in those

* by which departments which average men consider mysterious,

slihood of Of these the most important, in our time, are

-reversion currency and foreign policy. In the time of the

r ever, that Kaiser William II, Baron Holstein (permanent Head

iccessfully of the German Foreign Office) had Immense power,

30pularity although he made no public appearances. How great

>d for any is the power of the permanent officials In the British

w far such Foreign Office at the present day, It is impossible

le to say. for us to know ; the necessary documents may become

lals which known to our children. The qualities required for

er behind power behind the scenes are very different from those

.ers, spies, required for all other kinds, and as a rule, though

:>n, where not always, they are undesirable qualities. A system

?er, there which accords much power to the courtier or the

icn) who wire-puller is, therefore, in general not a system

personal likely to promote the general welfare,
Mag to the

D 49

CHAPTER IV

IN* this chapter and the I propose to consider

the two forms of traditional power which have had

importance In past times 3 namely, priestly and

kingly authority. Both are now somewhat in eclipse,

it would be rash to assume that

* -H 1 '

will revive, their decline, whether permanent
or it to study both institu-

tions a wMcIi is not attainable

still vigorous forms of power are concerned.
Hugs, though in a rudimentary form,
the most primitive societies known to
Sometimes one person combines the
of both. TMs occurs not only among
but in highly civilized States. Augustus, in
Pontifex Maximus, and in the provinces
was a The Caliph was the head of the Moham-

as as of the State. The Mikado,
at the day, has a similar position in the

There has been a strong tendency
for to their secular functions owing to

and thus to develop into priests.
at times and places, the distinction

has been obvious and

primitive form of priest is the medicine-

are of two kinds, which an-

as religious and magical.

PRIESTLY POWER

Religious powers depend upon the assistance of
superhuman beings, while magical powers are sup-
posed to be natural. For our purposes, however, this
distinction is not important. What is important is
that the medicine-man, whether by magic or by
religion^ is thought to be able to do good or harm
to other people, and that his powers are not shared
by all and sundry, A certain amount of magic, it
is thought, may be practised by the laity, but the
medicine-man's magic is stronger. When a man falls
ill or meets with an accident, it is usually due to the
malevolent magic of an enemy, but the medicine-
man knows of ways by which the evil spell can be
removed. Thus in Duke of York Island the medicine-
man, after discovering by divination the source of
the patient's illness, takes a packet of lime and
recites a magical formula :

Lime of exorcism. I banish the octopus; I banish the
teo snake; I banish the spirit of the Ingiet (a secret
society) ; I banish the crab ; I banish the water snake ;
I banish the balivo snake; I banish the python; I banish
the kaia dog. Lime of exorcism. I banish the slimy fluid;
I banish the kite creeping plant; I banish To Pilana;
I banish To Wuwu-Tawur ; I banish Tumbal. One has
sunk them right down deep in the sea. Vapour shall
arise to hold them afar; clouds shall arise to hold them
afar ; darkness shall reign to hold them afar ; they shall
betake themselves to the depths of the sea. 1

It must not be supposed that this formula is

usually ineffective. Savages are much more subject

1 Rivers, Medicine, Magw, and Religion, p. 16.

POWER

in drcurastances ; no one could have achieved

it In rJnetecnth-century England. But when It Is

possible, it only a Mgfa degree of the same

qualities as are required by democratic politicians in
at any in excited times. Lenin, Musso-
lini, and Hitler owed their rise to democracy.
When once a dictatorship has been established, the

bv which a man succeeds a dead dictator
<*

are from those by which the dictator-

* *

was originally created. Wire-pulling, intrigue,

and are the most important methods

is discarded. For this reason, a

is stare to change its character very
after tie death of its founder. And since

the bv which a man succeeds to a dictator-

j, #

arc less impressive than those by which

the created* there is a likelihood of

<& **

* 1 * ** *" t 1? * 1$ 1? * * *

revolutions, and ultimate reversion

to system. It is hoped, however, that

of propaganda may successfully
this tendency, by creating popularity
for the of the State without the need for any

of qualities on Ms part. How far such

can it is as yet impossible to say.

it one of the power of individuals which
we not yet considered, namely 5 power behind
: the of courtiers, intriguers, spies,

In every large organization, where
the in have considerable power, there

arc less men (or women) who

over the leaders by personal
Wire-pullers and party bosses belong to the

THE FORMS OF POWER

type, though their technique is different. They
put their friendsj quietly, into key positions, and so,
in time, control the organization. In a dictatorship
which is not hereditary, such men may hope to
succeed to the dictator when he dies ; but in general
they prefer not to take the front of the stage. They
are men who love power more than glory; often
thev are socially timid. Sometimes, like eunuchs in

r t y

Oriental monarchies,, or kings' mistresses elsewhere,
they are, for one reason or another, debarred from
titular leadership. Their influence is greatest where
nominal power is hereditary, and least where it is
the reward of personal skill and energy. Such men,
however, even in the most modem forms of govern-
ment, inevitably have considerable power in those
departments which average men consider mysterious.
Of these the most important, in our time, are
currency and foreign policy. In the time of the
Kaiser William II, Baron Holstein (permanent Head
of the German Foreign Office) had immense power,
although he made no public appearances. How great
is the power of the permanent officials in the British
Foreign Office at the present day, it is impossible
for us to know ; the necessary documents may become
known to our children. The qualities required for
power behind the scenes are very different from those
required for all other kinds, and as a rule, though
not always, they are undesirable qualities. A system
which accords much power to the courtier or the
wire-puller is, therefore, in general not a system
ikely to promote the general welfare.

CHAPTER IV

POWER

Ix this chapter and the next I propose to consider
the of traditional power which have had

in times, namely, priestly and

& A ^ * * * *

kingly authority. Both are now somewhat in eclipse,

it would be rash to assume that

revive, their decine,, whether permanent

or it possible to study both institu-

& /t ** A *

a completeness which is not attainable
still forms of power are concerned.

kings,, though in a rudimentary form,
the most primitive societies known to
Sometimes one person combines the
of both. This occurs not only among
but ia highly civilized States. Augustus, in
Poniifex Maximus, and in the provinces
was a The Caliph was the head of the Moham-
medan as we! as of the State, The Mikado,
at the day^ has a similar position in the

There has been a strong tendency
for to their secular functions owing to

thus to develop into priests,
at and places, the distinction

and has been obvious and

dditafc,

form of priest is the medicine-

are of two kinds, which an-

as religious and magical.

PRIESTLY POWER

Religious powers depend upon the assistance of
superhuman beings 5 while magical powers are sup-
posed to be natural. For our purposes, however, this
distinction is not important. What is important is
that the medicine-man, whether by magic or by
religion. Is thought to be able to do good or harm
to other people, and that his powers are not shared
by aH and sundry. A certain amount of magic 3 it
is thought, may be practised by the laity, but the
medicine-man's magic is stronger. When a man falls
ill or meets -with an accident, it is usually due to the
malevolent magic of an enemy, but the medicine-
man knows of ways by which the evil spell can be
removed. Thus in Duke of York Island the medicine-
man s after discovering by divination the source of
the patient's illness, takes a packet of lime and
recites a magical formula:

Lime of exorcism. I banish the octopus ; I banish the
to snake; I banish the spirit of the Ingiet (a secret
society); I banish the crab; I banish the water snake;
I banish the balivo snake; I banish the python; I banish
the kaia dog. Lime of exorcism. I banish the slimy fluid;
I banish the kete creeping plant; I banish To Pilana;
I banish To Wuwu-Tawur ; I banish Tumbal. One has
sunk them right down deep in the sea. Vapour shall
arise to hold them afar; clouds shall arise to hold them
afar; darkness shall reign to hold them afar; they shall
betake themselves to the depths of the sea. 1

It must not be supposed that this formula is
usually ineffective. Savages are much more subject

1 Rivers, Medicine, Magk 3 and Religion, p. 16,

POWER

to suggestion than civilized men, and therefore their

very often be both caused and cured by

In parts of Melanesia, according to Rivers,

who cures is the sorcerer or priest.

is not apparently, in these regions, a very clear
between medicine-men and others,
of the simpler remedies may be used by

m*\, tviTt

who the practice of medicine with

of magical or religious rites usually acquire their

art bv a process, cither of initiation or instruc-

* f *. *

tior and in knowledge has always to be

The complete instruction in any branch

of medico-magical 0r medico-religioiis art is of no avail

to tlit pupil money has passed from himself to

& A, # *

Ms instructor. 1

it is easy to imagine the
of a definite priestly caste, with a
of the more important magical and re-
consequently with great authority
the community. In Egypt and Babylonia their
itself greater than that of the Icing
the two into conflict. They defeated the

Ikimaton/ and they seem to

helped Cyrus to conquer Babylon

native showed a tendency to anti-

wore peculiar in antiquity owing

1 Rivers, MagK 9 md RfBguat, p. 44.

* Or

PRIESTLY POWER

to their almost complete freedom from priestly power.
In Greece, such religious power as existed was
chiefly concentrated in the oracles, especially Delphi,
where the Pythoness was supposed to fall into a
trance and give answers inspired by Apollo. It was,
however, well known by the time of Herodotus that
the oracle could be bribed. Both Herodotus and
Aristotle relate that the Alcmaeonidae, an important
Athenian family exiled by Peisistratus (died 527 B.C.) 5
corruptly procured the support of Delphi against
his sons. What Herodotus says is curious : the Alc-
maeonidae, he tells us, ec lf we may believe the
Athenians, persuaded the Pythoness by a bribe to
tell the Spartans, whenever any of them came to
consult the oracle, either on their own private affairs
or on the business of the State, that they must free
Athens (from the tyranny of the Peisistratidae). So
the Lacedaemonians, when they found no answer
ever returned to them but this, sent at last Anchi-
moEus 5 the son of Aster a man of note among their
citizens at the head of an army against Athens,
with orders to drive out the Peisistratidae, albeit they
were bound to them by the closest ties of friendship.
For they esteemed the things of heaven more highly
than the things of men." 1

Though AttohimoHus was defeated, a subsequent
larger expedition was successful, the Alcmaeonidae
and the other exiles recovered power, and Athens
again enjoyed what was called "freedom."

There are several remarkable features in this
narrative. Herodotus is a pious man, completely de-
1 Bk. V, Ch. 63. Rawlinson's translation.

POWER
void of and he thinks well of the Spartans

. *" "

fcr to the oracle. But lie prefers Athens to

In Athenian affairs he is against the
Nevertheless it Is the Athenians whom
lie as for the bribery, and no punish-

the successful party or the Pythoness
for impiety. 1 The Alcmaeonidae were still

prominent in the days of Herodotus ; in fact the most
famous of them was his contemporary Pericles.
Aristotle, in his book on the Constitution of Athens 3
the transaction in an even more dis-
creditable light. The temple at Delphi had been
bv Sre in >i8 B.C.., and funds for the

* 4 *Jj> *

of rebuilding it were collected throughout

by the Alcmaeonidae- They so Aristotle

of the fends to bribe the Pythoness.

4* * '

the expenditure of the rest conditional on
the overthrow of Hippias, son of Pdsistratus a by which

was won over to their side,
la of such scandals, control of the oracle

at remained a matter of such political im-

portance as to be the cause of a serious war, called,

em of its connection with religion, the

"Saered" Wai. But in the long run the open recogni-
tion of the Fact the oracle was open to political

encouraged the spread of free
s ultimately made it possible for the

us, inclining the odium of sacrilege,

to rob of most of their wealth and

all of It is the fate of most religious

1 instance of corruption of the

Bt !, Ok 66.

PRIESTLY POWER

Institutions* sooner or later, to be used by bold men
for secular purposes, and thereby to forfeit the
reverence upon which their power depends. In the
Graeco-Roman world this happened more smoothly
and with less upheaval than elsewhere, because
religion had never the same strength as in Asia and
Africa and mediaeval Europe. The only country
analogous to Greece and Rome in this respect is
China.

Hitherto we have been concerned only with re-
ligions which have come down from immemorial

^w*

antiquity, without any known historical origin. But
these have been superseded, almost everywhere, by
religions derived from founders; the only important
exceptions are Shinto and Brahmanism. The origins
of the older religions, as of those found by anthro-
pologists among present-day savages, are completely
obscure. Among the most primitive savages, as we
have seen, there is not a clearly differentiated priestly
caste ; it would seem that, at first, priestly functions
are a prerogative of the older men, and presumably
especially of such as produce an impression of wisdom,
or sometimes of pre-eminence in malignant magic. 1
With advancing civilization, in most countries,
priests become increasingly separate from the rest
of the population and increasingly powerful. But
as the guardians of an ancient tradition they are
conservative, and as possessors of wealth and power
they tend to become hostile or indifferent to personal
religion. Sooner or later, their whole system is over-
thrown by the followers of a revolutionary prophet.

1 Rivers, Social Organization, p. 167.

POWER

Christ, and Mohammed are the historically
important examples. The power of their
followers was at first revolutionary, and only gradu-
ally traditional. In the process they usually

of the old tradition which they had
overthrown.

religious and secular innovators at any rate
tie/e who have tad most lasting success have
appealed, as far as they could, to tradition* and have
whatever lay in their power to minimize the
elements of novelty in their system. The usual plan
is to a or less fictitious past and pretend

to be restoring its institutions. In 2 Kings xxii we are
fold the priests "found" the Book of the Law,
and the a "return" to observance of

Its The Xew Testament appealed to the

cf the Prophets ; the Anabaptists appealed
to the Xew Testament; the English Puritans, in

appealed to the supposed institutions

of the Conquest The Japanese, in

AJX 645^ "restored" the power of the Mikado ; in

"restored" the constitution of A.D. 645.

A of rebdbj throughout the Middle

and to the 1 8 Bramaire, "restored 35

the institutions of Rome. Napoleon

the of Charlemagne, but this was

felt to be a too theatrical, and failed to impress

minded age. These are only

a few at random, of the respect

the innovators have shown for

and important of all priestly

PRIESTLY POWER

organizations known to history has been the Catholic
Church. I am concerned in this chapter with the
power of priests only in so far as it is traditional ;
I will not, therefore, at present, consider the early
period when the power of the Church was revolu-
tionary. After the fall of the Roman Empire, the
Church had the good fortune to represent two
traditions : in addition to that of Christianity, it also
embodied that of Rome. The Barbarians had the
power of the sword, but the Church had a higher
level of civilization and education, a consistent
impersonal purpose, the means of appealing to
religious hopes and superstitious fears, and, above
alls the sole organization that extended throughout
Western Europe. The Greek Church, which had to
deal with the comparatively stable empires of Con-
stantinople and Moscow, became completely sub-
ordinate to the State ; but in the West the struggle
continued, with varying fortunes, until the Reforma-
tion, and to this day is not ended in Germany and
Mexico and Spain.

For the first six centuries after the Barbarian
invasion the Western Church was unable to contend
on equal terms with the turbulent and passionate
Germanic kings and barons who ruled in England
and France, in North Italy and in Christian Spain.
For this there were several reasons. Justinian's
conquests in Italy had for a time made the Papacy
a Byzantine institution, and had greatly diminished
its influence in the West. The higher clergy were
drawn, with few exceptions, from the feudal aris-
tocracies, with whom they felt more at one than

y^ti a alien Pope whose interferences

were resented. The lower clergy were ignorant and

t- (

*f w M

in extant

ifi^cms. The first effective government

tvcr a hrrre area not that of the Pope s but that

of Charlemagne, whom al! Ms contemporaries re-

as the Pope's superior.

,1 * i jT

After the year 1000, when it was found that the

expected end of the world not taken p!ace 3 there

uis a rapid advance in civilization. Contact with the

Meets in Spain and Sicily hastened the rise of the

scholastic philosophy. The Xonnans, after being for

a irere piratical scourge, acquired, in

and Sicily, whatever the contemporary world

tad to teach, and became a force for order and

of for disorder; moreover they found
for the purpose of legitimizing
By them, for the first time, ecclesi-
England was completely under the

of Rome* Meanwhile, the Emperor

i the of France were having the greatest

In their vassals. It was in these

the and ruthless

of VII inaugurated

the of the power which continued

the next two centuries. As this period
the of priestly power 3 I

it in detail

Tie days Papacy, wMcl

PRIESTLY POWER

accession of Gregory VII (i 073), extend to Clement V's
establishment of the Papacy at Avignon (1308). Its
victories during this period were won by what are
called "spiritual 35 weapons, i.e., by superstition, not
by force of arms. Throughout the whole period, the
Popes were outwardly at the mercy of the Roman
mob, led by the turbulent nobles of the City for,
whatever the rest of Christendom might think, Rome
never had any reverence for its Pontiff. The great
Hildebrand himself died in exile ; yet he acquired
transmitted the power to humble even the
greatest monarchs. Canossa, though its immediate
political consequences were convenient for the
Emperor Henry IV, became a symbol for subsequent
ages. Bismarck, during the Kulturkampf, said "we
will not go to Canossa" ; but he boasted prematurely.
Hemy IV, who had been excommunicated, needed
absolution to further his schemes, and Gregory,
though he could not refuse absolution to a penitent,
exacted humiliation as the price of reconciliation
with the Church. As politicians, men might rail
against the Pope, but only heretics questioned the
power of the keys, and heresy was not countenanced
even by the Emperor Frederick II at the height of
Ms struggle with the Papacy.

Gregory VTTs pontificate was the culmination of
an important period of ecclesiastical reform. Until
Ms day, the Emperor had been definitely above the
Pope, and had claimed, not infrequently, a decisive
voice in his election. Henry III, father of Henry IV,
had deposed Gregory VI for simony, and had made
a German Pope, Clement II. Yet Henry III was

POWER

so! in the Church; on the contrary,

he a saintly man, allied with all the most

ecclesiastics of Ms time. The reform move-

which fee supported, and which Gregory VII

to triumph, was directed essentially against

the rf the Church to become infected with

feudalism. Kings and nobles appointed Archbishops

Bishops, who thcjnselves 5 as a rale s belonged to

the feudal aristccracy, and took a very secular view

of their cvm position. In the Empire^ the greatest

the Emperor originally officials,

held their lands In virtue of their official position ;

by the of the eleventh century they had

become hereditary nobles, whose possessions passed

by inheritance. There was a danger of something

similar in the Church, particularly in the lower

of the secular clergy. The reforming party in

the Church the cognate evils of simony

^'concubinage" {as they called the marriage of

priests*!- IE campaim they showed zeal, courage

At A. O 4 f O

much worldly wisdom; by their

secured the support of the laity, and

by they won over assembles originally

At in 1058^ for example, St. Peter

the clergy to obedience to the

of Rome ; at first he provoked so

Ms life was in danger, but at last he

and it was that every single priest

the the Archbishop downward,

of simony. All confessed, and

for the future ; on these terms,

not but It was made clear

PRIESTLY POWER

that future offences would be punished without

mercy.

Clerical celibacy was one of Hildebrand's pre-
occupations ; in enforcing it, lie enlisted the laity,
who were frequently guilty of gross cruelty towards
priests and their wives. The campaign was not, of
course, completely successful to this day it has not
succeeded in Spain but one of its main objects was
achieved by the decree that sons of priests could not
be ordained, which prevented the local priesthood
from becoming hereditary.

One of the most important triumphs of the reform
movement was the fixing of the method of Papal
election by the decree of 1059. Before this decree,
the Emperor and the Roman populace had certain
ill-defined rights, which made schisms and disputed
elections frequent. The new decree succeeded
though not immediately and not without a struggle
in confining the right of election to the Cardinals.

This reform movement, which filled the latter
half of the eleventh century, succeeded, to a great
extent, in separating Abbots, Bishops, and Arch-
bishops from the feudal nobility, and in giving the
Pope a voice in their appointment for when he
had been given no voice he could usually find a
taint of simony. It impressed the laity, and greatly
increased their reverence for the Church. When it
succeeded in imposing celibacy, it made priests more
markedly separate from the rest of the world, and no
doubt stimulated their power impulses, as asceticism
does in most cases. It inspired leading ecclesiastics
with moral enthusiasm for a cause in which every

one those who profited by the

traditicr.aj corruption* and as the means of

Tigering this cause It involved a great increase of

Fewer dependent upon propaganda usually de-
rrar.dr. as in this exceptional courage and

self-sacrifce at the start; but when respect has been
wen by qualities, they can be discarded, and

tie resrcct can be used as a means to worldly

ad^arvffRVMTt Then, in time, the respect decays, and

tie advantages which it secured are lost. Some-

lie process a few years, sometimes

thousands cf years,, but in It is always the

Greecry VII was no pacifist. His favourite text
^Cursed be the man that keepeth back Ms
from blood/ 1 * But he explained this as pro-
hibiting keeping the word of preaching from
men, \vhich shows the justice of Ms views on
the of propaganda*

Nicolas the only Englishman who ever

the Chair (1154-59), shows the

of the Pope in a somewhat different

of a pupil of Abelard,

the "clerks who have estates,

lii. f

possess property,

be saved/' This doctrine, of course^ was not
St. of him : "A man who

eats nor he only, like *he Devil,

and for the of souls/ 3 St.

the less admitted his exemplary piety,
a ally for the Romans in

PRIESTLY POWER

conflict with the Pope and Cardinals, whom,

in the year 1143, they had succeeded in driving
into He supported the revived Roman Republic,
which sought moral sanction in his doctrine. But
Adrian IV (Breakspear), taking advantage of the
murder of a Cardinal, placed Rome under an
interdict during Holy Week. As Good Friday
approached, theological terrors seized upon the
Senate, which made abject submission. By the help
of the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, Arnold was
captured ; lie was hanged, Ms body was burnt, and
Ms ashes were thrown into the Tiber. Thus it was
proved that priests have a right to be rich. The
Pope 3 to reward the Emperor, crowned him in St.
Peter's. The Emperor's troops had been useful, but
not so useful as the Catholic Faith, to which, much
more than to secular support, the Church owed both
its power and its wealth.

The doctrines of Arnold of Brescia were such as to
reconcile Pope and Emperor to each other; for each
recognized that both were necessary to the established
order. But when Arnold was disposed of, the in-
evitable quarrel soon broke out afresh. In the long
war that ensued, the Pope had a new ally, namely
the Lombard League. The cities of Lombardy,
especially Milan, were rich and commercial; they
were at that time in the forefront of economic
development, a fact which is commemorated for
Englishmen in the name "Lombard Street." The
Emperor stood for feudalism, to which bourgeois
capitalism was already hostile. Although the Church
prohibited "usury;* the Pope was a borrower, and

A i * ;,, 4j
r;

fc-und the capital of Xcrth Italian bankers so useful
ihefric'rica! rigour had to be softened. The
conflict of with the Papacy, which lasted

for atout twenty yean, in a draw, and it was

chiefiy cw5n to the Lombard Cities that the Emperor

v *

r/oi victorious,

the long contest between the Papacy and the
r Frederick 11 5 the ultimate victory of the
pe ivas the. In the maia s to two causes: the
: sitlon of the ccmmercial]y minded cities of North
Italy, Tuscany as well as Lombardy, to the feudal

svittin* the pious enthusiasm aroused by the

* * *

Franciscans. St. Francis preacked apostolic poverty

universal love : but within a few years of Ms

his followers were acting as recruiting sergeants

m a war tc defend the property of the Church.

The Emperor was defeated largely because he was

to his cause in a garb of piety or

morality.

At the time, the war measures adopted by

the this straggle made many men

of the Papacy on moral grounds. Of Innocent

IV, the with whom Frederick "was contending

* JT O

at the of Ms deatti s the Cambridge

/Tt * 1 "f "T /*"*

[VoL VI, p. 176; sap:

of the Papacy was more secular

A ji, J

any Pope's before Mm. He viewed his

as Ms remedies were political.

He Ms powers constantly to raise

bay injure fbes s and by his un-

he roused a disrespectful hostility to

the everywhere. His dispensations were a

PRIESTLY POWER

In contempt of Ms spiritual duties and of
rights, he used the endowments of the Church as

^^ *

papal revenue and means of political rewards: there
would be four papal nominees waiting one after
another for a benefice. Bad appointments were a
natural consequence of such a system \ and, further,
legates chosen for war and diplomacy would more

likely than not be thoroughly worldly in character

Of the loss of prestige and spiritual influence occa-
sioned by Mm Innocent was unconscious. He had
intentions, but not good principles. Endowed
with courage,, with invincible resolution, with astute-
ness., Ms cold equanimity was seldom shaken by
disaster or good-fortune, and he patiently pursued
Ms ends with a cunning faithlessness which lowered
the standards of the Church. His influence on events
was enormous. He wrecked the Empire; he started
the Papacy on its decline; he moulded the destinies
of Italy."

The death of Innocent IV produced no change
in papal policy. His successor Urban IV carried
on the struggle, with complete success, against
Frederick's son Manfred, and won the support of
the still rising capitalism of Italy, wherever it was
wavering, by an interesting use of his authority in
matters of morals, wMch affords a classic example
of the transformation of propaganda power into
economic power. Most of the bankers, owing to
their large transactions in collecting the papal
revenue, were already on the side of the Pope, but
in some cities, for instance Siena, Ghibelline feeling
was so strong that the bankers, at first, sided with

E 65

POWER
this kapoened, the Pope informed

J* A * JL

the debtors that it was their Christian duty

not to pay their debts, a pronouncement which the

readily accepted as, authoritative. Siena 5 as

a result, lost the English trade* Throughout Italy, the

ruin were compelled by this

manoeuvre to become Guelphs. 1

But such though they could win the

support of the bankers, could hardly in-

iheir for the Pope's claims to divine

n *

* iH Vj "B * $ ff!'/ J$ <W*t 4"ira nr

aalDOni^ .

The whole of the from the fall of the

Empire to the end of the sixteenth century
fae as a contest between two traditions :

of Rome s and that of Teutonic aris-

tocracy, the embodied in the Church, the

in the State. The Holy Roman Emperors
an to the tradition of imperial

but They themselves s with the excep-

of Frederick II, were too ignorant to understand

* __^ "w*

the tradition^ while the political institution

of with which they were familiar, was

The language of educated men in-
cluding who served the Emperors was pedan-

antiquity; law was Roman,

was Greek 5 but the customs which were

in were not such as could be men-

in There was the same sort of

as a scholar of the present day

find in describing in Latin the processes of

It was not until the Reformation

1 C Vol. VII, p.

PRIESTLY POWER

and the adoption of modern languages In place of
Latin that the Teutonic element in the civilization
of Western Europe found adequate literary and
intellectual expression.

After the fall of the Hohenstaufen, the Church
seemed, for a few decades, to have re-established the
rule of Italy over the Western world. Judged by
money standards, this rule was at least as firm as in
the days of the Antonines the revenue that flowed
from England and Germany to Rome far exceeded
what the Roman legions had been able to extract.
But it was extorted by means of the reverence felt
for the Papacy, not by force of arms,

As as the Popes moved to Avignon, however,
they began to lose the respect which they had won
dining the three preceding centuries. This was due
not only to their complete subservience to the King
of France, but also to their participation in vast
atrocities, such as the suppression of the Templars.
King Philip IV, being in financial difficulties, coveted
the lands of this order. It was decided to accuse
them, quite grouiidlcssly, of heresy. With the help
of the Pope 5 those who were in France were seized,
tortured until they confessed that they had paid
homage to Satan and spat upon the crucifix, etc.,
and then burnt in large numbers, while the King
disposed of their property, not without pickings for
the Pope. Such deeds began the moral degeneration
of the Papacy.

The Great Schism made it still more difficult to
reverence the Pope, since no one knew which of
the claimants was the legitimate one, and each

POWER

the other. Throughout the

of the two rivals showed an

tenacity of power, extending to repudia-

of tie solemn oaths. In various countries,

the and the local Church, in unison, withdrew

both Popes. At length it became clear
only a general council could end the trouble.
Council cf PIsa s rnxsgrudedly, merely created a

successfully getting rid of the

ether two, it pronounced their deposition

as the Council of Constance at last sue-

in all three and restoring unity.

But the had destroyed the traditional

for toe Papacy. At the end of this period of

it had become possible for Wyclif to say of

*To get rid of a demon would not harm the

but be to it; in working for his

the Church would be working solid-

for the of God."

Papacy, while it suited Italy,
was too and secular, as well as too openly

jte the piety of Northern countries.

At kst 5 in Teutonic countries, the moral revolt

to alow free play to economic
: there was a general refusal to pay tribute to
and and noble seized the lands of the

Bat this not have been possible with-

out to rev o!t of Protestantism, which could

never have taien place but for the Great Schism and
of the Renaissance Papacy. If the moral
of the had not been weakened from

PRIESTLY POWER

within, its assailants could not have had moral force
OH their side, and would have been defeated as
Frederick II was defeated.

It is interesting in this connection to observe what
Machiavelli has to say on the subject of ecclesiastical
principalities in Chapter XI of The Prince :

"It only remains now to speak of ecclesiastical
principalities, touching which all difficulties are prior
to getting possession, because they are acquired either
by capacity or good fortune, and they can be held
without either; for they are sustained by the ancient
ordinances of religion, which are so all-powerful, and
of such a character, that the principalities may be
held no matter how their princes behave and live.
These princes alone have states and do not defend
them, they have subjects and do not rule them; and
the states, though unguarded, are not taken from
them, and the subjects, though not ruled, do not
care, and they have neither the desire nor the ability
to alienate themselves. Such principalities only are
secure and happy. But being upheld by powers to
which the human mind cannot reach, I shall speak
no more of them, because, being exalted and main-
tained by God, it would be the act of a presumptuous
and rash man to discuss them. 33

These words were written during the pontificate of
Leo X, which was that in which the Reformation
began. To pious Germans, it gradually became
impossible to believe that the ruthless nepotism of
Alexander VI, or the financial rapacity of Leo, could
be "exalted and maintained by God." Luther, a
"presumptuous and rash man," was quite willing

POWER

the of the papal power, from

shrank. And as soon as there
and theological support for opposition
to ifce Church, motii'cs of self-interest caused the
to spread with great rapidity. Since the
power cf tie Church had been based upon the power
of the It was that opposition should be

a new doctrine of Justification.

made it possible for lay princes to

tfec Church without fear of damnation, and

moral condemnation from their

motives contributed greatly to the
cf the Reformation, they are obviously not
to account for it, since they had been
for centuries. Many Emperors tried to resist
the so did sovereigns elsewhere, e.g. Henry II

and in England. But their attempts were

^-"Tht and therefore failed. It was only

the had, for a long time, so abused its

as to cause a moral revolt, that
became possible.

Tte rise and of papal power are worthy

] by anyone who wishes to understand the

of power by propaganda. It is not enough to
say that men were superstitious and believed in the
of the leys. Throughout the Middle Ages there
were which would have spread, as Pro-

spread, if the Popes had not, on the whole
respect And without heresy secular rulers*
made attempts to keep the Church in sub-

to the State, which failed in the West

PRIESTLY POWER

though they succeeded in the East. For this there were
various reasons.

First: the Papacy was not hereditary, and was
therefore not troubled with long minorities, as secular
kingdoms were. A man could not easily rise to
eminence in the Church except by piety, learning,
or statesmanship; consequently most Popes were
men considerably above the average in one or more
respects. Secular sovereigns might happen to be able,
but were often quite the reverse ; moreover they had
not the training in controlling their passions that
ecclesiastics had. Repeatedly, kings got into diffi-
culties from desire for divorce, which, being a matter
for the Church, placed them at the mercy of the
Pope. Sometimes they tried Henry VIIPs way of
dealing with this difficulty, but their subjects were
shocked, their vassals were liberated from their oath
of allegiance, and in the end they had to submit
or fall.

Another great strength of the Papacy was its im-
personal continuity. In the contest with Frederick II,
it is astonishing how little difference is made by the
death of a Pope. There was a body of doctrine, and a
tradition of statecraft, to which kings could oppose
nothing equally solid. It was only with the rise of
nationalism that secular governments acquired any
comparable continuity or tenacity of purpose.

In the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries,
kings, as a rule, were ignorant, while most Popes were
both learned and well-informed. Moreover kings were
bound up with the feudal system, which was cum-
brous, in constant danger of anarchy, and hostile to

ii*U

4 1 ijpftk

POWER

the forces. On the whole, during

the Chinch represented a higher

nation than that represented by the State.
_ut bv far the strength of the Church was

the respect which it inspired. It inherited, as a

kind cf moral capital the glory of the persecutions in
ancient rinses. Its victories, as we have seen, were
mm the enforcement of celibacy, and
the mediaeval mind found celibacy very impressive.
Very many ecclesiastics, including not a few Popes,

hardships rather than yield on a point

of principle. It was clear to ordinary men that, in a

wcrld of uncontrolled rapacity, licentiousness, and

felf-seekin?, eminent dignitaries of the Church not

infrequently lived for impersonal aims, to which

they willingly subordinated their private fortune. In

centuries, men of impressive holiness

St. Bernard, St. Francis dazzled public

and prevented the moral discredit that

have come from the misdeeds of

to an organization which has ideal ends, and

an excuse for love of power, a reputation for

virtue is dangerous, and is sure, in the long

Jp |QJ Jf J> 1*J

to a superiority only in unscrupulous

The Church preached contempt for the
world 5 and in doing so acquired
over monarchs* The Friars took a vow of
so impressed the world that it
already enormous wealth of the
St Francis, by preaching brotherly love,
the enthusiasm required for the victorious
72

PRIESTLY POWER

prosecution of a long and atrocious war. In the end,
the Renaissance Church lost all the moral purpose
to which it owed its wealth and power, and the
shock of the Reformation was necessary to produce
regeneration.

All this is inevitable whenever superior virtue is
used as a means of winning tyrannical power for an
organization.

Except when due to foreign conquest, the collapse
of traditional power is always the result of its abuse by
men who believe, as Machiavelli believed,, that its
hold on men's minds is too firm to be shaken even by
the grossest crimes.

In the United States at the present day, the
reverence which the Greeks gave to oracles and the
Middle Ages to the Pope is given to the Supreme
Court. Those who have studied the working of the
American Constitution know that the Supreme
Court is part of the forces engaged in the protection
of the plutocracy. But of the men who know this,
some are on the side of the plutocracy, and therefore
do nothing to weaken the traditional reverence for the
Supreme Court, while others are discredited in the
eyes of ordinary quiet citizens by being said to be
subversive and Bolshevik. A considerable further
career of obvious partisanship will be necessary
before a Luther will be able to attack successfully
the authority of the official interpreters of the
Constitution.

Theological power is much less affected by defeat
in war than secular power. It is true that Russia and
Turkey, after the Great War 3 suffered a theological

POWER

1 Tii r*,r> Itti "* "5! T^v^

*' 'A '.,. jtJil , *i* 1 % w ,J

f Jk,

the Stasc, The most important instance of
"rical survival in spite of defeat ia wax is the
victory of the Church over the Barbarians in the fifth
century, St AUTOS tine, is the % of God, which was
red by the sack of Rome ? explained that
;;;<ral power was not what was promised to the
beiie w * rr, not to be expected as

tsttk cf orthodoxy*. The surviving pagans within

for the gods 3 but in spite

cf the plausibilitj* of this contention it failed to win
any general support; among the invaders, the
superior civilization of the vanquished prevailed, and
the victors the Christian faith. Thus through

the of the Church the influence of Rome

the of whom none before

in shaking off the tradition of
ancient culture.

CHAPTER V

KINGLY POWER

THE origin of kings, lite that of priests, is prehistoric,
and the early stages in the evolution of kingship
can only be conjectured from what still exists among
the most backward savages. When the institution is
fully developed, but has not yet begun to decline,
the king is a man who leads his tribe or nation in
war, who decides when to make war and when to
make peace; often, though not always, he makes
the laws and controls the administration of justice.
His title to the throne is usually in a greater or less
degree hereditary. He is, moreover, a sacred person :
if not himself a god, he is at least the Lord's anointed.
But kingship of this sort presupposes a long evolu-
tion of government, and a community much more
highly organized than those of savages. Even the
savage chief, as most Europeans imagine him, is
not to be found in really primitive societies. The
man whom we regard as a chief may have only
religious and ceremonial functions to perform;
sometimes, like the Lord Mayor, he is only expected
to give banquets. Sometimes he declares war, -but
takes no part in the fighting, because he is too sacred.
Sometimes his mana is such that no subject may look
upon him ; this effectually prevents him from taking
much part in public business. He cannot make the
laws, since they are decided by custom; he is not
needed for their administration, since, in ,a small

51 1"!
0,ti"*

f"<!T , 1 1

^ **^ /5T* ! -*4 I *^i t^tv ra T^ T*> iT*T T" 1 n !" i^

in oiu lapan' noi like

<V Jk

.
A*'t.*t-* *^*^.*, u-.-*-

r& ^^ ^ ' uE5 y" 1 V"*> ' V " ^ ( lClL 1 S w ^'^r*i'^, ~\V* ^ "TS ^ P^ f"\15 ft"iC&T*

*i i^*^, ci.o.% LtrrciiiijiUiiJ po er

* #

custom, and so little by formal government, that
the n;en whom Europeans call chiefs

onlv faeeinninffs of kinelv Dower. 1

DJI S .' iwi' *w? t* A

Migration foreign invasion are powerful

forces in the destruction of custom^ and therefore In

the of government. At the lowest level

*M" civilization at whlcli there are rulers worthy to be

kinjjs, the rcval familv is sometimes of alien

*w* * ! dfl-

has ivor, respect, initiallv. by some

%!($ ' id * & * rf

superioritv. But whether this is a common

*. 4t

or in the evolution of monarchy

is a among anthropologists.

It is war must have played a great part

in the power of kings, since in war the

of a is obvious. To make the

is the easiest way of avoiding

the of a succession: even if the king

4, w* j^j

has the of Ms successor, he is

4< A A 1*S /

to one of his family. But dynasties

do not last for ever, every royal family begins

a or conqueror. Usually religion

the by means of some tradi-

tional Priestly power profits by these

it comes to be an essential support

KINGLY POWER

of the royal prestige. "No Bishop, no King/ 5 said
Charles I, and the analogue of this maxim has been
true in all ages in which kings have existed. The
^ositkwi of king appears to ambitious people such a
desirable one that only powerful religious sanctions
will make them renounce the hope of acquiring it
themselves.

Whatever may have been the stages by which the
primitive chief developed into the historical king,
the process was already completed in Egypt and
Babylonia at the earliest period of which records
exist. The Great Pyramid is considered to have been
built before 3000 B.C., and its construction would
only have been possible for a monarch possessed of
immense power over his subjects. Babylonia, at this
period, had a number of kings, none having a terri-
tory comparable to that of Egypt; but they were
very completely rulers in their respective areas.
Before the end of the third millennium B.C. we reach
the great king Hammurabi (2123-2081 B.C.), who
did all the things that a king should do. He is best
known by his code of laws, which was given to him
by the sun-god, and shows that he succeeded in
achieving what mediaeval monarchs never could do,
namely, subordinating ecclesiastical to civil courts.
But he was also distinguished as a soldier and as an
engineer. Patriotic poets sang the praises of Ms con-
quests:

For all time he his mighty strength hath shown,
The mighty warrior, Hammurabi, king,
Who smote the foe, a very storm in battle.
Sweeping the lands of foemen, bringing war to nought,

POWER

Givins? rebellion surcease, and destroying,,
Like of clay, maJignants, hath laid open
Th? of the impenetrable hills.

fa *

sccrded himself Ms exploits in irrigation:
and Enlil [a god and goddess] gave
me the of Sumer and Akkad to rale, and

entrusted their sceptre to me, I dug the canal

which bringeth

*# * A t sj

for the of Sinner and Akkad. The

of Sinner and Akkad I gathered,

and I provided them; I

plenty and abundance, and

Kingship as an reached its utmost

limit:? of in Egypt at the time of the

Pyramid in Babylonia at the time of

Later have had larger territories^
but complete role over their

The power of Egyptian and Babylonian
was only by foreign conquest^ not by

They could not, it is true, afford
to tie priesthood, since the submission

of upon the religious sig-

nificance but except in this respect

was

In cities, got rid of their kings*

m at or before the beginning of the

The Roman kings are prehistoric,

the throughout their history,

an to the name of Mug.

in the West, was never a
in the full of the word. His origin

KINGLY POWER

was extra-legal, and he depended always upon the
army. To civilians, he might declare himself a god ?
but to the soldiers he remained merely a general
gave, or did not give, adequate donatives.
Except occasionally for short periods, the Empire
was not hereditary. The real power was always the
army, and the Emperor was merely its nominee for
the being.

The Barbarian invasion reintroduced monarchy,
but with a difference. The new kings were the chiefs
of Germanic tribes^ and their power was not absolute,
but depended always upon the co-operation of some
Council of Elders or kindred body. When a Germanic
tribe conquered a Roman province, its chief became
ling, but Ms most important companions became
nobles with a certain measure of independence,
Hence arose the feudal system, which left all the
monarchs of Western Europe at the mercy of tur-
bulent Barons.

Monarchy consequently remained weak until it
had got the better of both the Church and the feudal
nobility. The causes of the weakening of the Church
we have already considered. The nobility was worsted
in the struggle with the king, in England and France,
because it was an obstacle to orderly government.
In Germany its leaders developed into petty kings
with the result that Germany was at the mercy of
France. In Poland, aristocratic anarchy continued
until the partition. In England and France, after
the Hundred Years War and the Wars of the Roses
ordinary citizens were compelled to put their faith
in a strong king. Edward IV became victorious by

POWER

the of the City of London, from which lie even
chose his Queen. Louis XL me enemy of the feudal

*"W *

mas the friend of the higher bourgeoisie,
him against the nobles while lie helped
against the artisans. "He ruled like a great
capitalist,'" is the official verdict of the

The monarchies had one great ad-

vantage, as compared with earlier kings in their
with the Church, namely that education
no longer a monopoly of ecclesiastics. The help

w * * JL

of lav invaluable in the establishment

# a

cf the monarchy.

The new monarchies., in England, France, and
Spain, Here above the Church and above the
aristocracy. Their power depended upon the support

nationalism and commerce:
as felt to be useful to these two,

strong, but when they failed in these
revolution. The Tudors were
in respects, but the Stuarts hampered
bv wanted to courtiers, and allowed

(*f A **J ** ^^

to be dragged at the chariot wheels of

France. The French monarchy

enhanced national power

the cad of Colbert's regime. After that time,

the of the Edict of Nantes, a series of

wars, crushing taxation, and
the of clergy and nobles from financial

both commerce and nationalism
the and in the end brought about the

was deflected by the conquest of

KINGLY POWER

the New World ; but the Spanish New World itself,
when it rebelled^ did so chiefly in order to be able
to trade with England and the United States.

Commerce, though it supported kings against
feudal anarchy, has always been republican when it
has felt sufficiently strong. It was so In antiquity,
in the North Italian and Hanseatic cities of the
Middle Ages, and in Holland during its greatest
days. The alliance between kings and commerce
mas therefore an uneasy one. Kings appealed to
"divine light/" and sough t, as far as possible, to make
their power traditional and quasi-religious. In this
they were partially successful: the execution of
Charles I was felt to be an impiety, not merely an
ordinary crime. In France, St. Louis was erected into
a legendary %ure 5 some of whose piety descended
as a cloak even to Loins XV, who was still "the
Christian King." Having created a new Court
aristocracy, kings tended to prefer it to the bour-
geoisie. In England, the higher aristocracy and the
bourgeoisie combined, and installed a king with a
merely parliamentary title, who had none of the
old magic properties of majesty : George I, for in-
stance, could not cure the king's evil, though Queen
Aroae could. In France., the king won over the
aristocracy, and Ms and their heads fell together
under the guillotine.

The alliance of commerce and nationalism, which
began with the Lombard League in the time of
Frederick Barbarossa, gradually spread over Europe,
achieving its last and briefest triumph in the Russian
February Revolution. Wherever it won power, it

F 81

POWER

tinned acainst hereditary power based on land, at
first in alliance with the monarchy, and then in
opposition to it. In the end, kings everywhere ^dis-
or reduced to figure-heads. Now,

at last, nationalism and commerce have parted
coiroanv; In Italy, Germany, and Russia it is
nationalism that has triumphed. The liberal move-
ment, begun in Milan in the twelfth century, has

run its course.

Traditional power, when not destroyed from
without, raas 9 almost always, through a certain

development Emboldened by Hie respect which
it inspires, it careless as regards the general

aDcrcvaL which It that it cannot ever lose.

is, J a

By sloth, iVily, or cruelty it gradually forces men to

sceptical of Its claims to divine authority,
claims have no better source than habit,
aroused., easily disposes of them.
creed, useful to the rebels, takes the place
of the old one ; or sometimes^ as in the case of Haiti
it won from the French, mere chaos

As a rude, a long period of very flagrant
is necessary before mental rebellion
widespread; and in many cases the rebels
IB to themselves part or the

of lie old authority. So Augustas absorbed into
slf the traditional dignity of the Senate;

the reverence for the Bible, while
reverence for the Catholic Church: the

raj Q3 *

gradually acquired the power
of the without destroying the respect for

monarchy.

KIXGLY POWER

AH these, however., were limited revolutions; those
which were more thoroughgoing involved greater
difficulties. The substitution of the republican form
of government for hereditary monarchy, where it
has been sudden, has usually led to various kinds
of trouble s since a new constitution has no hold over
mental habits, and will only be respected,
broadly speaking, in so far as it accords with self-
interest. Ambitious men, therefore, will seek to
become dictators, and will only desist after a con-
siderable period of failure. If there is no such period,
a republican constitution will fail to acquire that
hold over men's thoughts that is necessary for
stability. The United States is almost the only
example of a new republic which has been stable
from the beginning.

The chief revolutionary movement of our time
is the attack of Socialism and Communism upon
the economic power of private persons. We may
expect to find here the common characteristics of
such movements, as exemplified, for example, in
the^ rise of Christianity, of Protestantism, and of
political democracy. But on this subject I shall have
to say at a later stage.

CHAPTER VI

NAKED POWER

As the beliefs and habits which have upheld tra-
diucnal power decay, it gradually gives way either
tA pover upon some new belief, or to ci naked"

power, I.e. to the kind that involves no acquiescence
on the part of the subject. Such is the power of the
butcher ever the sheep, of an invading army over a
vanquished nation, of the police over detected

consDlrators. The power of the Catholic Church

* *** *

over Catholics is traditional, but its power over

heretics who are persecuted is naked. The power of

the State over loyal citizens is traditional, but its

over is naked. Organizations that

a of power pass, as a rule, through

: first, that of fanatical but not traditional

to conquest; then, that of general

in the new power, which rapidly

traditional ; and finally that in which power,

those who reject tradition,

Qr W *Jt i*

has naked. The character of an

very greatly as it passes through

The power conferred by military conquest often
a longer or shorter period of time^ to be
military. All the provinces conquered by the
Romans, Judea^ soon became loyal subjects

of the Empire, ceased to feel any desire for

teacc* In Asia and Africa the Christian

NAKED POWER

countries conquered by the Mohammedans sub-

with little reluctance to their new rulers.

I Vales gradually acquiesced in English rule, though

Ireland did not. After the Albigensian heretics had

overcome bv militarv force, their descendants

* * y

submitted inwardly as well as outwardly to the
authority of the Church. The Norman Conquest
produced, in England,, a royal family which, after
a time, was thought to possess a Divine Eight to the
throne. Military conquest is stable only when it is
followed by psychological conquest, but the cases
la which this has occurred are very numerous.

Naked power, in the internal government of a
community not lately submitted to foreign conquest,
arises in two different sets of circumstances : first,
where two or more fanatical creeds are contending
for master)' ; secondly., where all traditional beliefs
have decayed, without being succeeded by new ones,
so that there are no limitations to personal ambition.
The former kind of case is not pure, since the adher-
ents of the dominant creed are not subject to naked
power. I shall consider it in the next chapter, under
the head of revolutionary power. For the present I
hhal confine myself to the second kind of case.

The definition of naked power is psychological,
and a government may be naked in relation to some
of its subjects but not in relation to others. The most
complete examples known to me, apart from foreign
conquest, are the later Greek tyrannies and some of
the States of Renaissance Italy.

Greek history affords, as in a laboratory, a large
number of small-scale experiments of great interest

POWER

to trie of political power. The hereditary

of the Homeric age came to an end before
of historical records, and was suc-
ceeded "by a hereditary aristocracy. At the point

reliable history of Greek cities begins, there
was a contest between aristocracy and tyranny.
in Sparta, tyranny was everywhere victorious
for a time, but was succeeded either by democracy
or "by a restoration of aristocracy, sometimes in the
fonn of plutocracy. This first age of tyranny covered
the greater pan of ihe seventh and sixth centuries
B.C. It was not an age of naked power s as was the
later with which 1 shall be specially con-

cernt'd; nevertheless, it prepared the way for the

ss and violence of later times.
The word ""want" did not, originally, imply any
in tie raler, but only an absence of
or title. Many of the early tyrants

wisely, and with the consent of the majority
of Their only implacable enemies, as

a the aristocrats. Most of the early tyrants

very rich who bought their way to power,
and themselves more by economic than

by They are to be compared rather

the with the dictators of our day.

first age of tyranny was that in which coinage

this had the same kind of

sir

in the power of rich men as credit and

in recent times. It has been

* < 4

what truth I am not competent
;e the introduction of currency was

t O T"* %* T "" TT"I S\ * " f

1 bee P. 3V Lrej Tjk 0ri$ of

NAKED POWER

connected with the rise of tyranny; certainly the

possession of silver mines was a help to any man who

at becoming a tyrant. The use of money,

when it Is new, profoundly disturbs ancient customs,

as may be seen in the parts of Africa which have not

long under European control. In the seventh

sixth centuries B.C., the effect was to increase

the power of commerce, and to diminish that of

territorial aristocracies. Until the Persians acquired

Asia Minor, wars in the Greek world were few and

unimportant, and not much of the work of produc-

j. j^

tion was performed by slaves. The circumstances
were idea! for economic power, which weakened
the hold of tradition in much the same way as
industrialism did in the nineteenth century.

So long as it was possible for everybody to be
prosperous, the weakening of tradition did more good
than harm. It led, among the Greeks, to the most
rapid advance in civilization that has ever occurred
with the possible exception of the last four
centuries* The freedom of Greek art and science and
philosophy is that of a prosperous age unhampered
by superstition. But the social structure had not the
toughness required to resist misfortune, and indivi-
duals had not the moral standards necessary for the
avoidance of disastrous crimes when virtue could no
bring success. A long series of wars diminished
the free population and increased the number of
slaves. Greece proper finally fell under the dominion
of Macedonia, while Hellenic Sicily, in spite of
increasingly violent revolutions, civil wars, and
tyrannies, continued to straggle against the power

POWER

Carthage, of Rome. The Syracusan

our attention, both because they

or^e of the most perfect examples of naked
power, because they Influenced PIato s who

quarrelled Yfith the elder Dionysius and endeavoured
to a pupil of the younger. The views of later

Greeks, and of all subsequent ages 9 on Greek tyrants
in general, were largely influenced by the un-
fortunate comae is of the philosophers with Dionv-

A J. ^

sius the and Ms successors in Svracusan mis-

4 "The machinery of fraud/ 3 says Grote, "whereby
people were to be cheated into a temporary
aissicn, as a prelude to the machinery offeree
whereby surh submission was to be perpetuated
against their consent was the stock in trade of
usurpers." How far the earlier tyrannies
without popular consent mav be

A A A Jt, ^

but of the later tyrannies, which were
rather than economic, this is certainly
Take, for example, Crete's description, based
on Diodorus, of the crucial moment in the rise of
the eider. The arms of Syracuse had
disgrace under a more or less
regime, and Dionysius, the chosen
of the champions of vigorous war, was de-
manding the punishment of the defeated generals.
"Amidst the and disquietude which reigned

in flic assembly, Dionysius was the first

who rose to them. He enlarged upon a topic

to the temper of his auditors and to his
own He vehemently denounced the generals

NAKED POWER

as having betrayed the security of Syracuse to the

Carthaginians and as the persons to whom the
ruin of Agrigentum, together with the impending
peril of ever)' man around, was owing. He set forth
their misdeeds, real and alleged, not merely with
fulness and acrimony, but with a ferocious violence
outstripping all the limits of legitimate debate, and
intended to bring upon them a lawless murder, like
the death of the generals recently at Agrigentum.
"There they sit, the Traitors ! Do not wait for legal
trial or verdict, but lay hands upon them at once,
and inflict upon them summary justice.' Such a
brutal exhortation , . , was an offence against law
as well as against parliamentary order. The presiding
magistrates reproved Dionysius as a disturber of
order, and fined Mm, as they were empowered by
law. But his partisans were loud in Ms support.
Philistus not only paid down the fine for him on the
spot 3 but publicly proclaimed that he would go on
for the whole day paying all similar fines which might
be imposed and incited Dionysius to persist in such
language as he thought proper. That which had
begun as illegality, was now aggravated into open
defiance of the law. Yet so enfeebled was the
authority of the magistrates, and so vehement the
cry against them, in the actual position of the city,
that they were unable either to punish or repress the
speaker. Dionysius pursued his harangue in a tone
yet more inflammatory, not only accusing the generals
of having corruptly betrayed Agrigentum, but also
denouncing the conspicuous and wealthy citizens
generally, as oligarchs who had tyrannical sway

of a potter* Owing to Ms beauty he became the
of a rich Syracusan named Demas, who
left him al! his money, and whose widow he married.
Ha VIE ? distinguished himself In war, he was thought
to be aspiring to the tyranny; he was accordingly
exiled* and orders were given that he should be
murdered en his journey. But he 3 having foreseen
this, changed clothes with a poor man, who was
murdered in error by the hired assassins. He then
an armv in the interior of Sicilv, which so

& * "*

teni:ied the Syracusans that they made a treaty
with him: he was readmitted, and swore in the

temple of Ceres that he would do nothing to the
prejudice of the democracy.

4 *' *

T3;e government of Syracuse at this time seems to
ha\e been a mixture of democracy and oligarchy.
There was a council of six hundred, consisting of
the richest men. Agathocles espoused the cause of

the against these oligarchs. In the course of a

with forty of them, he roused the soldiers
had all the forty murdered, saying there was a
him. He then led the army into the city,
telling them to plunder all the six hundred ; they did
so,, massacred citizens who came out of their
to sec what was happening; in the end, large
were murdered for booty. As Diodorus
says; * fc Nay, there was BO safety even to them that
led to the temples under the shelter of the gods ;
but towards the gods was crushed and borne

by the cruelty of men: and these things
Greeks in their o\vn country, and
kindred in a time of peace, without

NAKED POWER
anv regard either to the laws of nature, or leagues,

or reverence to the gods, dared thus audaciously
to commit: upon which account not only friends,
but even enemies themselves, and every sober man ?
could not but pity the miserable condition of these
distressed people."

Those of Agathocles's party spent the day-time
slaughtering the men, and at nightfall turned their
attention to the women.

After two days 3 massacre, Agathocles brought
forth the prisoners and tilled aH but Ms friend
Dlnocrates. He then called the assembly, accused the
oligarchs, and said he would purge the city of all
friends of monarchy, and himself would live a private
life. So he stripped off his uniform and dressed in
mufti. But those who had robbed under his leader-
ship wanted Mm in power, and he was voted sole
general. "Many of the poorer sort, of those that were
in debt, were much pleased with this revolution," for
Agatfiocles promised remission of debts and sharing
out of lands to the poor. Then he was mild for a time.

In war, Agathocles was resourceful and brave,
but rash. There came a moment when it seemed as if
the Carthaginians must be completely victorious;
they were besieging Syracuse, and their navy occu-
pied the harbour. But Agathocles, with a large army,
sailed to Africa, where he burnt his ships to prevent
them from falling Into the hands of the Cartha-
ginians. For fear of revolt in his absence, he took
children as hostages; and after a time his brother,
who was representing him in Syracuse, exiled eight
thousand political opponents, whom the Cartha-

POWER
In Africa he was at first amaz-

lE*f

successful; he captured Tunis 5 and besieged

Carthage, where the government became alarmed,
and set to work to propitiate Moloch. It was found

whose children ought to have been
sacrificed to the god had been in the habit of pur-
chasing poor children as substitutes; the practice
was now sternly repressed, since Moloch was known
be mere gratified by the sacrifice of aristocratic
en. After this reform the fortunes of the
Carthaginians began to mend.
Agatfcccles, feeling the need of reinforcements,
envoys to Cyrene, which was at that time held,
Ptolemy, by Ophelas s one of Alexander's
The envoys were instructed to say that,
;Ip of OphelaSj Carthage could be de-
: that Agathocles wished only to be secure
in Sicily, and no African ambitions; and that all
joint conquests in Africa should be the share
of Tempted by these offers, Ophelas

the desert with his anny s and after
effected a junction with Agathocles.
thereupon murdered Mm 5 and pointed
out to Ms army that their only hope of safety was
;e under the murderer of their late

Utica, where, arriving un-
expectedly, he captured three hundred prisoners in
the ; he bound to the front of his siege

so the Uticans, to defend themselves,
had to Mi own people. Although successful

in this his position was difficult, the more

NAKED POWER

so as he had reason to fear that Ms son Archagathus

was stirring up disaffection In the army. So he fled
secretly back to Sicily, and the army, In fury at his
desertion, murdered both Archagathus and his other
sort. This so enraged him that he killed every man,

woman, and child in Syracuse that was related to
any soldier IB the mutinous army.

His power in Sicily, for some time, survived all
these vicissitudes. He took Aegesta, killed all the
poorer males In that city, and tortured the rich till

they revealed where their wealth was concealed.
->

The young women and children he sold as slaves to
the Bnittii on the mainland.

His home Efe, I regret to say, was not altogether
happy. His wife had an affair with his son^ one of his
two grandsons murdered the other, and then Induced

Q> '

a servant of the old tyrant to poison grandpapa's
toothpick. The last act of Agathocles, when he saw
he must dle 3 was to summon the senate and demand
vengeance on his grandson. But Ms gums^ owing to
the poison, became so sore that he could not speak.
The citizens rose s he was hurried onto his fiineraJ
pyre before he was dead, his goods were confiscated,

we are told that democracy was restored.
Renaissance Italy presents a very close parallel to
ancient Greece, but the confiislon Is even greater.
There were oligarchical commercial republics, tyran-
nies, after the Greek model, principalities of feudal
origiiij and, In addition, the States of the Church.
The Pope 3 except In Italy,, commanded reverence,,
bat Ms sons did not 3 and Cesaxe Borgia had to rely
naked power,

POWER

Cesarc and his father Alexander VI are

not only on their own account, but as

inspired Machiavelli. One incident in their

with Creighton's comments, will serve to

their age. The Colorma and Orsini had

the of the Popes for centuries ; the Colonna

already faJlen, but the Orsini remained.

Alexander VI made a treaty with them, and invited

cMefj Cardinal Orsini^ to the Vatican, on

that Cesare had captured two important

by treachery. Cardinal Orsini was arrested

as as he came into the Pope's presence; Ms

the Pope two thousand ducats for the

of sending him food, and his mistress

His Holiness with a costly pearl which he

had coveted. Nevertheless Cardinal Orsini died in

prison of poisoned wine given by the orders of

VI, it was said. Creighton's comments

OH this occurrence 1 illustrate the character of a

of power :

"It is that this treacherous deed should

no remonstrances, and should have
so completely successful ; but in the artificial
" Italy everything depended on the skill of
of the game. The condottieri represented
and when they were removed
ty however treacherous, nothing re-

There was no party, no interest, which was
by the fall of the Orsini and Vitellozzo.
"" of the condottieri were formidable so

as they their generals; when the

1 history of &e ftte^ VoL V p. 42.

' 4^ JL

NAKED POWER

generals were removed, the soldiers dispersed and
entered Into other engagements. . . . Most men
admired Cesare's consummate coolness In the
matter. . . . No outrage was done to current morality.
. . . Most men in Italy accepted as sufficient Cesare's
remark to Machiavelli: 4 It is well to beguile those
who have shown themselves masters of treachery. 3
Cesare's conduct w r as judged by its success,"

In Renaissance Italy, as in ancient Greece, a very
high level of civilization was combined with a very
low level of morals : both ages exhibit the greatest
heights of genius and the greatest depths of scoundrel-
ism, and in both the scoundrels and the men of
genius are by no means antagonistic to each other.
Leonardo erected fortifications for Cesare Borgia;
some of the pupils of Socrates were among the worst
of the thirty tyrants ; Plato's disciples were mixed
up in shameful doings in Syracuse, and Aristotle
married a tyrant's niece. In both ages, after art a
literature, and murder had flourished side by side
for about a hundred and fifty years, all were extin-
guished together by less civilized but more cohesive
nations from the West and North. In both cases the
loss of political independence involved not only
cultural decay, but loss of commerical supremacy and
catastrophic impoverishment.

Periods of naked power are usually brief. They
end, as a rule, in one or other of three ways. The first
is foreign conquest, as in the cases of Greece and
Italy which we have already considered. The second
is the establishment of a stable dictatorship, which
soon becomes traditional ; of this the most notable

G 97

POWER

k the empire of Augustus, after the period
vi civil wars from Marius to the defeat of Antony.

The is the rise of a new religion., using the word

;a its sense. Of this,, an obvious instance is tie

in which Mohammed united the previously

of Arabia, The reign of naked force

in relations after the Great War might

have by the adoption of communism

throughout Europe, if Russia had had an exportable

"* r* f i

SCT fl W*^" t lj T? w tj? <^ p * *lr % i*? 1 *^ ^J^**' iii^S

siifyilUui t/1 lOUCi

Where is naked, not only internationally,

but in the government of single States, the

of power are far more ruthless

they are elsewhere. THs subject has been

treated, for all, by Machiavelli. Take, for ex-

Ms. laudatory account of Cesare Borgia's
to in case of the death of

VI :

**He to act in four ways. Firstly, by exter-

the of those lords whom he had

so as to take away that pretext from the

by winning to himself all the gentle-

of so as to be able to curb the Pope with

aid. Thirdly, by converting the college more

to Fourthly, by acquiring so much power

the die that lie could by his own

the first Of these four things,

at the of Alexander, he had accomplished

For he had as many of the dispossessed

as he ky hands' on, and few had

etc

The and of these methods

NAKED POWER

inisrht be employed at any time, but the first would
shock public opinion in a period of orderly govern-
ment A British Prime Minister could not hope to
consolidate his position by murdering the Leader
of the Opposition. But where power is naked such
restraints become inoperative.

Power is naked when its subjects respect it solely
it is power, and not for any other reason.
Thus a form of power which has been traditional
becomes naked as soon as the tradition ceases to be
accepted. It follows that periods of free thought and
vigorous criticism tend to develop into periods of
naked power. So it was in Greece, and so it was in
Renaissance Italy. The theory appropriate to naked
power has been stated by Plato in the first book of
the through the mouth of Thrasymachus,

gets annoyed with Socrates for his amiable
attempts to find an ethical definition of justice.
"My doctrine is," says Thrasymachus, "that justice
is simply the interest of the stronger. 5 * He proceeds :

"Each government has its laws framed to suit its
OWE interests; a democracy making democratical
; an autocrat despotic laws, and so on. Now by
this procedure these governments have pronounced
that what is for the interest of themselves is just for
their ^ subjects; and whoever deviates from this, is
chastised by them as guilty of illegality and injustice.
Therefore, my good sir, my meaning is, that in all
cities the same thing, namely, the interest of the
established government, is just. And superior strength
1 presume is to be found on the side of the govern-
ment So that the conclusion of right reasoning is that

POWER

the thing, namely, the Interest of the stronger,

w * * O 7

ust."

this view is generally accepted, rulers

to be subject to moral restraints, since what they

do in to power is not felt to be shocking

to who suffer directly. Rebels^ equally,

are r/nly fay the fear of failure; if they can

by ruthless means 5 they need not be afraid

this will make them unpopular,

The of Thrasymachus, where it is

the existence of an orderly

entirely dependent upon the direct

at the disposal of the government. It

a military tyranny inevitable. Other forms

of can only be stable where there is

wide-spread belief which inspires respect for

the distribution of power. Beliefs which have

in this respect have usually been

as stand against intellectual criticism.

has at various times been limited., with general

to royal families, to aristocrats, to rich men,

to as to women, and to white men

as to with other pigmentations. But

the of intelligence among subjects has caused

to Imitations, and the holders of

flwl *

obliged either to yield or to rely

force. If orderly government is to com-

some way must be found of

a majority of mankind to agree upon some

that of Thrasymachus.

1 to 1 a later chapter the consideration

f of winning general consent to a form of

ioo

NAKED POWER

otherwise than by superstition, but a

few preliminary remarks will be appropriate at this

stage. In the first place, the problem is not essentially

insoluble, since it has been solved in the United

(It can hardly be said to have been solved

in Great Britain^ since respect for the Crown has

an essential element in British stability.) In

the second place, the advantages of orderly govern-

must be generally realized; this will usually

involve the existence of opportunities for energetic

to become rich or powerful by constitutional

means. Where some class containing individuals of

ability is debarred from desirable careers.

<3 tf *

there is an element of instability which is likely to
to rebellion sooner or later. In the third place,
there will be need of some social convention deliber-
ately adopted in the interests of order, and not so
flagrantly unjust as to arouse widespread opposition.
Such a convention, if successful for a time, will soon
traditional, and will have all the strength
that belongs to traditional power.
Rousseau's "Social Contract, 55 to a modem reader,
not seem very revolutionary, and it is difficult to
see why it was so shocking to governments. The
chief reason is, I think, that it sought to base govern-
mental power upon a convention adopted on rational
grounds, and not upon superstitious reverence for
monarchs. The effect of Rousseau's doctrines upon
the world shows the difficulty of causing men to
upon some non-superstitious basis for govern-
ment* Perhaps this is not possible when superstition
is swept away very suddenly; some practice in

POWER

voluntary co-operation Is necessary as a preliminary
Ttie difficulty is that respect for law

i to social crder ? but is impossible under

a traditional regime which no longer commands
assent arid is necessarily disregarded in a revolution.
But although the problem Is difficult it must be solved
if the existence of orderly communities is to be com-

r>**ti

with the exercise of intelligence.
Tbe of this problem is sometimes misap-

prehended It is not suScient to find, in thought,
a of government which, to the theorist 3 appears

to afford BO motive for revolt ; it is necessary

to a of government which can be actually

into existence, and further, if it exists, will

sufficient loyalty to be able to suppress or

revolution. TMs is a problem of practical

in which account must be taken of all

the prejudices of the population con-

There are those who believe that almost any

of men, when once it has seized the machinery

of the can, by means of propaganda, secure

acquiescence. There are, however, obvious

to this doctrine. State propaganda has s

ia proved powerless when opposed to

as in India and (before 1921} in

It lias difficulty in prevailing against strong

How far, and for how long., it can

the self-interest of the majority, 'is

still a It must be admitted, how-

becomes steadily more
the of securing acquiescence is

for governments. The

NAKED POWER

rations we have been raising will be considered

more fully at later stages ; for the present, they are
merely 10 be borne In mind.

I have spoken hitherto of political power, but
in the economic sphere naked power is at least
equally important, Marx regarded all economic
relations, except in the socialist community of the
future, as entirely governed by naked power. Per
the late filie Halevy, the historian of Bentham-
once maintained that, broadly speaking, what
a is paid for his work is what he himself believes
it to be worth. I am sure this is not true of authors :
1 always found., in my own case, that the more
1 thought a book was worth, the less I was paid for
it. And if successful business men really believe that
their work is worth what it brings in, they must be
even stupider than they seem. None the less, there
is an element of truth, in Halevy's theory. In a stable
community, there must be no considerable class
with a burning sense of injustice ; it is therefore to
be supposed that, where there is no great economic
discontent, most men do not feel themselves grossly
underpaid. In undeveloped communities, in which
a man's livelihood depends upon status rather than
upon contract, he will, as a rule, consider that what-
ever is customary is just. But even then Halevy's
inverts cause and effect: the custom is the
of man's feeling as to what is just, and not vice
versa. In this case, economic power is traditional;
it only becomes naked when old customs are upset,
or ? for some reason, become objects of criticism.

la the infancy of industrialism, there^Were no

103

POWER

to the wages that should be ^ paid,

__ the employees were not yet organized, Conse-

the relation of employer and employed was
out of power, within the limits allowed by

the ; and at first limits were very wide.

The orthodox economists had taught that the wages

of* unskilled labour must always tend to fail to

subsistence level, but they tad not realized that this

upon the exclusion of wage-earners from

power and from the benefits of combination.

saw that the question was one of power, but 1

he political as compared with

economic power. Trade unions, which immeasurably

the bargaining power of wage-earners, can

be suppressed if wage-earners have no share in

power ; a of legal decisions would have

in England but for the fact that, from

working men had votes. Given

organization, wages are no longer

by naked power, but by bargaining, as

in the and sale of commodities.

The played by naked power in economics is

it was thought to be before the

of had become operative. In certain

this is The booty extracted by a high-

his victim, or by a conqueror from a

is obviously a matter of naked

So is slavery, when the slave does not

habit. A payment is extorted by

if it has to be made in spite of the

of the person making it. Such indignation

O * t *

in two of cases : where the payment is

NAKED POWER

not customary, and where, owing to a change of

outlook, what is customary has come to be thought
unjust. Formerly, a man had complete control of
the property of his wife, but the feminist movement
caused a revolt against this custom, which led to a
change in the law. Formerly, employers had no
liability for accidents to their employees ; here, also,
sentiment changed, and brought about an alteration
in the law* Examples of this kind are innumerable.
A wage-earner who is a Socialist may feel it unjust
that Ms income is less than that of his employer ;
in that case 3 it is naked power that compels him to
acquiesce. The old system of economic inequality is
traditional, and does not, in itself, rouse indignation,
except in those who are in revolt against the tra-
dition. Thus every increase of socialistic opinion
makes the power of the capitalist more naked ; the
case is analogous to that of heresy and the power of
the Catholic Church. There are, as we have seen,
certain evils that are inherent in naked power, as
opposed to power which wins acquiescence; conse-
quently every increase in socialist opinion tends to
make the power of capitalists more harmful, except
in so far as the rathlessness of its exercise may be
mitigated by fear. Given a community completely
"" on the Marxist pattern, in which all wage-earners
were convinced socialists and all others were equally
convinced upholders of the capitalist system, the
victorious party, whichever it might be, would have
no escape from the exercise of naked force towards
its opponents. This situation, which Marx prophe-
sied ? would be a very grave one. The propaganda of

POWER

hi? in so far as it is successful, is tending

to it about.

of the abominations in human history

are with naked power not only those

with war, but others equally terrible if
less spectacular. Slavery and the slave trade, the

of the Congo, the horrors of early

cruelty to children, judicial torture,

the law, prisons, workhouses, religious

the atrocious treatment of the Jews,

the frivolities of despots, the unbelievable

of the treatment of political opponents in

and Russia at the present day all these

are of the use of naked power against

of unjust power which are deeply

In must at one time have been

Christian wives, for many centuries^ obeyed

because St. Paul said they should;

but the story of Jason and Medea illustrates the

must have had before St. Paul's

generally accepted by women.

There be power, either that of governments,

or of aaarcMc adventurers. There must even

be power, so long as there are rebels against

or even ordinary criminals. But if
life is to be, for the mass of mankind, any-
than a dull misery punctuated with
of sharp horror, there must be as little
as possible. The exercise of power,
if It is to be better than the infliction of

torture, must be hedged round by safe-

NAKED POWER

of law and custom., permitted only after due

CT' *

deliberation^ and entrusted to men who are closely
supervised In the interests of those who are subjected

1 do not pretend that this is easy. It involves,
thing, the elimination of wax, for all war
is an exercise of naked power. It involves a world
from those intolerable oppressions that give rise
to rebellions. It involves the raising of the standard
of life throughout the world, and particularly in
ladia, China, and Japan, to at least the level which
had been reached in the United States before the
depression. It involves some institution analogous to
the Roman tribunes, not for the people as a whole,
bet for every section that is liable to oppression,
such as minorities and criminals. It involves, above
all, a watchful public opinion, with opportunities of
ascertaining the facts.

It is useless to trust in the virtue of some individual
or set of individuals. The philosopher king was
dismissed long ago as an idle dream, but the philo-
sopher party, though equally fallacious, is hailed as a
great discovery. No real solution of the problem of
power is to be found in irresponsible government
by a minority, or in any other short cut. But the
fiuther discussion of this matter must be left for a
later chapter*

107

AFTER VII

REVOLUTIONARY POWER

A TRADITIONAL system, we observed, may break up

in two different ways. It may happen that the creeds

mental habits upon which the old regime was

to mere scepticism; in that case,

cohesion can only be preserved by the exercise

of power. Or it may happen that a new

new mental habits 3 acquires an
hold over men, and at last becomes
enough to substitute a government in har-
with the new convictions in place of the one
which is felt to have become obsolete. In this case
the revolutionary power has characteristics

are different both from traditional and from
power. It is true that, if the revolution is
the system which it establishes soon
traditional ; it is true, also, that the revolu-
tionary if it is severe and prolonged, often
into a straggle for naked power. Never-
the adherents of a new creed are psycho-
very different from ambitious adventurers,
are apt to be both more important
permanent,

1 revolutionary power by con-

examples: (I) Early Christianity ; (II)

The ; (III) The French Revolution and

; (IV) Socialism and the Russian Revo-

REVOLUTIONARY POWER

I, Early I am concerned with Chris-

only as it affected power and social organ-
ization, not 3 except incidentally, on the side of
personal religion,

Christianity was, in its earliest days, entirely
unpolitical. The best representatives of the primitive
tradition in our time are the Christadelphians, who
believe the end of the world to be imminent, and
to have any part or lot in secular affairs. This
attitude,, however, is only possible to a small sect,
As the number of Christians increased and the
Church grew more powerful, it was inevitable that
a to influence the State should grow up.

Diocletian's persecution must have very much streng-
this desire. The motives of Constantine's
conversion remain more or less obscure, but it is
evident that they were mainly political, which implies
that the Church had become politically influential.
The difference between the teachings of the Church
and the traditional doctrines of the Roman State
was so vast that the revolution which took place at
the time of Constantine must be reckoned the most
important in known history.

In relation to power, the most important of
Christian doctrines was: "We ought to obey God
rather than man." This was a precept to which
nothing analogous had previously existed, except
among the Jews. There were, it is true, religious
duties, but they did not conflict with duty to the
State accept among Jews and Christians. Pagans
were wiling to acquiesce in the cult of the Emperor,
wen when they regarded his claim to divinity as

109

POWER
whollv of metaphysical truth. To the Chris-

$$ *

0a the contrary, metaphysical truth was of
the utmost moment: they believed that if they
an act of worship to any but the one
they meinred the risk of damnation, to
was preferable as the lesser evil.
principle we ought to obey God rather
has interpreted by Christians in two
ways. God's commands may be conveyed
to the conscience either directly, or in-

directly the medium of the Church. No

OBC Henry VIII and Hegel has ever he!d s

our day, that they could be conveyed

the of the State. Christian teaching

has, involved a weakening of the State^ either
in of the right of private judgment, or in

of the Church, The former, theoretically,
; the latter involves two authorities,
and State, with no clear principle according
to spheres are to be delimited. Which

arc the that are Caesar's and which are the

arc God's? To a Christian it is surely
to say that all things are God's. The claims
of tic Church, therefore, are likely to be such as
the will find intolerable. The conflict between

the and the State has never been theoreti-

continues down to the present
day ia as education.

It supposed that the conversion

lead to harmony between
and TMs ? however, was not the case.

The Emperors were Arians s and the

REVOLUTIONARY POWER

period of orthodox Emperors in the West was very
brief, owing to the incursions of the Arian Goths and
Vandals. Later, when the adherence of the Eastern
Emperors to the Catholic Faith had become unques-
tionable, Egypt was monophysite and much of
Western Asia was Nestorian. The heretics in these
countries welcomed the followers of the Prophet, as
less persecuting than the Byzantine govern-
ment. As against the Christian State, the Church
was everywhere victorious in these many contests;
y the new religion of Islam gave the State power
dominate the Church.
The nature of the conflict between the Church
and the Arian Empire of the late fourth century is
illustrated by the straggle between the Empress
Justina and Saint Ambrose, Archbishop of Milan,
in the year 385. Her son Valentinian was a minor,
and she was acting as regent; both were Arians.
in Milan during Holy Week, the Empress
"was persuaded, that a Roman emperor might
claim, in his own dominions, the public exercise of
Ms religion; and she proposed to the Archbishop,
as a moderate and reasonable concession, that he
resign the use of a single church, either in
the city or suburbs of Milan. But the conduct of
Ambrose was governed by very different principles.
The palaces of the earth might indeed belong to
Caesar; but the church were the houses of God; and,
the limits of his diocese, he himself, as the
successor of the apostles, was the only minister
of God. The privileges of Christianity, temporal as
well as spiritual, were confined to the true believers ;

POWER

the of Ambrose was satisfied, that his own

opinions were the standard of truth and

The archbishop, who refused to hold any

or negotiation, with the instruments of

declared, with modest firmness, his resolu-

to die a martyr rather than yield to the impious

It appeared, however, that he had no need

to martyrdom. When he was summoned before

the Council^ he was followed by a vast and angry
of supporters, who threatened to invade the

JL Jr ^

perhaps Mil the Empress and her son,
The Gothic mercenaries, though Arian, hesitated to
act so holy a man, and to avoid revolution

the Empress was obliged to give way. "The mother
of Valentinian could never forgive the triumph of
Ambrose ; the royal youth uttered a passionate

that his own servants were ready to

into the hands of an insolent priest"

In the following year (386) the Empress again

to overcome the Saint, An edict of banish-

was pronounced against him. But he took

ia the cathedral, where he was supported,

day and night, by the faithful and the recipients of

charity. To keep them awake, he

into the church of Mian the useful

of a loud and regular psalmody." The

of Ms followers was further reinforced by

and in the end "the feeble sovereign of

unable to contend with the

of heai^ciL"

i Ck XXVII.

113

REVOLUTIONARY POWER

Such contests, of which there were many, estab-
lished the independent power of the Church. Its
victory was due partly to almsgiving, partly to
organization^ but mainly to the fact that no vigorous
creed or sentiment was opposed to it. While Rome
was conquering, a Roman could feel strongly about
the glory of the State, because it gratified his imperial
pride ; but in the fourth century this sentiment had
been long extinct. Enthusiasm for the State, as a
force comparable with religion, revived only with
the rise of nationalism in modern times.

Every successful revolution shakes authority and
makes social cohesion more difficult. So it was with
the revolution that gave power to the Church. Not
only did it greatly weaken the State, but it set the
pattern for subsequent revolutions. Moreover the
individualism, which had been an important element
of Christian teaching in its early days, remained as
a dangerous source of both theological and secular
rebellion. The individual conscience, when it could
not accept the verdict of the Church, was able to
find support in the Gospels for a refusal to submit.
Heresy might be annoying to the Church, but was
not, as such, contrary to the spirit of primitive
Christianity.

This difficulty is inherent in every authority that
owes its origin to revolution. It must maintain that
the original revolution was justified, and it cannot^
logically, contend that all subsequent revolutions
must be wicked. 1 The anarchic fire in Christianity

1 The attempt to do so sometimes Las strange results. The
young in Russia at the present day are carefully sheltered
from laudatory accounts of the revolutionary movement in

H 113

POWER

"P^H* ff-^r 1

* %^A4^

alive,, though deeply buried, throughout
the Middle Ages; at the Reformations it suddenly
shot up Into a great conflagration.

II. Ths R'Jomativn. From the point of view of
pOTvcr, trie Reformation lias two aspects that concern
us; on the one hand. Its theological anarchism
the Church ; on the other hand, by weak-
ening zhe Church it strengthened the State. The
Reformation was chiefly important as the partial
destruction of a international organization,

which repeatedly proved itself stronger than

any secular government. Luther^ in order to succeed
the Church the extremists, was obliged
to rely upon the support of secular princes 1 ; the

aays. The Lft^er of an Old Bolshecik (George Allen

& Ucivin, Ltd- , after telling of a supposed plot by some

to murder Sialin., continues: "From the accused

threads drawn to professors of political mi

It Is easy to find pages in any lectures on the

of the Russian revolutionary movement highly con-

ducive nowadays to the cultivation of critical attitudes in

to the Government, and young hotheads always like

to their conclusions coacemieg the present by citing

whkh they have been taught in school to regard as

established. AH Agranov had to do was to pick the

na Ms opinion, were to be regarded as fellow

This was hew the first batch of defendants in the

sf the recruited,"

1 "The Peasants* War/' says Tawney in Religion and the

KM "with its touching appeal to the Gospel sind

its catastrophe, not only terrified Luther into his

*Whc*o strike, smite, strangle, or stab, secretly

or . , . woodcrfoi times are these that a prince

cm Heaven with bloodshed than another with

it also helped to stamp on Lutheranism an almost

114

REVOLUTIONARY POWER

Lutheran Church never, until the time of Hitler,
showed any disloyalty to governments that were not
Catholic, The peasants 3 revolt gave Luther another

for preaching submission to princes. The
Church, as an independent power, practically ceased
to exist in Lutheran countries,, and became part of
the machinery for preaching submission to the
secular government.

In England, Henry VIII took the matter in hand
with characteristic vigour and ruthlessness. By de-

himself Head of the Church of England, he
set to work to make religion secular and national.
He had no wish that the religion of England should
be part of the universal religion of Christendom ; he

English religion to minister to his glory rather
than to the glory of God, By means of subservient
Pariaments 3 he could alter dogmas as he chose;
and he had no difficulty in executing those who

Ms alterations. The dissolution of the monas-

brought Mm revenue, wMch enabled Mm

easily to destroy such Catholic insurrections as the

smile reliance on the secular authorities." A few pages later
he quotes another saying of Luther's: "No one need think
tfaat the world can be ruled without blood. The civil sword
*ball and must be red and bloody." Tawney's comment is as
"Thus the axe takes the place of the stake, and
aufconly, expelled from the altar, finds a new and securer
borne upon the throne. The maintenance of Christian morality
B to be transferred from the discredited ecclesiastical author!-
to to the hands of the State. Sceptical as to the existence of
iraconB and salamander*, the age of Machiavelli and Henry
VHI found food for its credulity in the worship of that rare
matter, _the God-fearing Prince." Some such credulity is
characteristic of revolutionary epochs.

115

t*t

POWER

Pllzrimage of Grace* Gunpowder and the Wars of
the Roses had weakened the old feudal aristocracy,

whose he cut off whenever lie felt so disposed

We!*nr f who relied upon the ancient power of the
Church, fell : Cromwell and Cranmer were Henry's

** Hf

"jb'icnierit took Henry was a pioneer s who first
shewed the W A orld what, in the eclipse of the Church,
the PO\UT cf the State could be.

The uork cf Henry VIII might not have been
permanent, but for the fact that, under Elizabeth^
a form of nationalism associated with Protestant-
ai once necessary- and lucrative. Self-
the defeat of Catholic Spain s
d took the form of capturing Spanish

ore-ilps. After that time, the only danger to
the Anglican Church was from the Left, not from
the Right, But the attack from the Left was defeated,
and was by

Good King Charles's golden days,
When loyalty no harm meant.

The Vicar illustrates the defeat of the Church

by the State in Protestant countries. So long as

toleration was not thought possible. Eras-

the only available substitute for the

of the Pope and General Councils.

however, could never be satisfactory
to in religion was strong. There

in asking men to submit

to the of Parliament on such questions as

the of Purgatory. The Independents re*

the and the Church equally as theological

REVOLUTIONARY POWER

authorities, and claimed the right of private judg-
ment, with the corollary of religious toleration. This
point of view readily associated itself with revolt
acainst secular despotism. If each individual had a
right to Ms own theological opinions, had he not,
perhaps, other rights as well? Were there not assign-
able limits to what governments might legitimately
do to private citizens? Hence the doctrine of the
Rights of Man, carried across the Atlantic by the
followers of Cromwell, embodied by Jeffer-
son in the American Constitution, and brought back
to Europe by the French Revolution.

III. The French Revolution and Nationalism. The
Western world., from the Reformation until 1848,
was undergoing a continuous upheaval which may
be called the Rights-of-Man Revolution. In 1848,
this movement began to transform itself into national-
ism east of the Rhine. In France., the association
had existed since 1792, and in England from the
beginning; in America, it had existed since 1776.
The nationalist aspect of the movement has gradually
overpowered the Rights-of-Man aspect, but this latter
was at first the more important.

It is customary in our day to pour scorn on the
Rights of Man, as a piece of shallow eighteenth-
entmy rhetoric. It is true that, philosophically
considered 5 the doctrine is indefensible ; but histori-
cally and pragmatically it was useful, and we enjoy
many freedoms which it helped to win. A Ben-
thamite, to whom the abstract conception of "rights"
is inadmissible, can state what is, for practical
purposes, the same doctrine in the following terms :

117

POWER

"Tie hriT'Dircss H increased if a certain

M I * Ji.

*pherc is ocfiued within which each Individual is to
Jxr tc act a* l* chooses, without the Interference
rf any extern:;! authority," The administration of

justice w;i,- al>o ,1 matter that Interested the advocates

pji

^ nf

3 *J1

law, Th:.< is an cpinlon which, whether trae or false,
involves n:? DHlc c or/Hca3 absurditv.

* A *

It is ofarlcus that the doctrine is, in origin and

! 'i' H ir > i" }T! o t" n* 31 c*ir"i *f^
iU> 'ilidL ilC ij.lUu.j.11

T"f*'!v*?i,'> r T.

in all lawful ways without bureaucratic

interferences to marry" where he loves, and to rebel

an alien domination. Where governmental

are necessary, they should so the advocate

of the of Man contends be the decisions of

a or of their representatives, not of an

arbitrary merely traditional authority such as
of priests. These views gradually

the civilized world, and pro-
* *? * *

the mentality of liberalism, which

in a certain suspicion of

has obvious logical and historical
to which asserted its doc-

trices in the sphere, although it

it acquired power. Tiuough
is a connection with early
and its hostility to the

is also a deeper connection

REVOLUTIONARY POWER

Christianity, owing to Its concern with the individual
According to Christian ethics, no State neces-
sity can justify the authorities in compelling a man
to "perform a sinful action. The Church holds that
a marriage is null if either party is subject to compul-
sion Even in persecution the theory is still indi-
vidualistic : the purpose is to lead the individual
heretic to recantation and repentance, rather than
to a benefit to the community. Kant's prin-

iple., that each man is an end in himself, is derived
i Christian teaching. In the Catholic Church, a
lone career of power had somewhat obscured the
individualism of early Christianity; but Protes-
especially in its more extreme forms, revived
it, and applied it to the theory of government.
When a revolutionary and a traditional creed
for mastery, as happened in the French Revolu-
tion* the power of the victors over the vanquished
is naked power. The revolutionary and Napoleonic
exhibited a combination of the propagandist
of a new creed with naked power on a larger
than had been seen before in Europe, and the
upon the imagination of the Continent has
to the present day. Traditional power every-
was challenged by the Jacobins, but it was
Napoleon's armies that made the challenge effective.
Napoleon's enemies fought in defence of ancient
and established a reactionary system when
the)- were at last victorious. Under their dull repres-
sion Ms violence and extortion were forgotten; the
of the Great Peace made war seem splendid
and bayonets the harbingers of freedom. A Byronic

. ,, , * f '*
> t*,t '

n'Vr/* f t * \ '< ! ' I"*" 1 *'

V Ml. 4^ i* <U. * ft,** A.*j.-

f"%
*

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v* *nc Jcv.e\ uiiitiOi**

V 5> T\O 1

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-^ %T ., , jinpw* ra*"'* fr-j r^iprrjanpT'lt'** TT'T". "T^l-prl TlOlVPT"

, 4i3 *i * "Ui *> J, ,.! * tij V*Ci.Ci*U I tl J.L JJ.AX. J tAtiXftal L/U%>t.Jl

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4S f* j ' I *"1 / '" f" 1 " T) * t 7s "*~'i "3 'f " " *r"<rtn C '!"f"iJSi^'"'i#5iT t 1T1

".- i;,i,*!it v*, I A - JL1 iiiai-^'A^-Aii MiCLAiCl Hi

f , t ,

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* 2-%.tjfc-5 18,*

B ^f

c i i'p'Tis** #*T?,r"i T
i> a. ICIiiiCiiL. V ,

* *

if the struggle Is long and severe, for fanaticism to

Ji jW-jWHmiJ -^ < f-.r% <h w

ot \ictor\\ I ne Gitiererice bezween revoiutioiiar\ r and

af gi>

^* W in i* pi f *

TI *> i i^ f r\ f r^ i'p'T' * ? T n P^TTA^T^T'P" OT'^ATI IP^CC! T H *% n if" CJP-^TY^ p iKrt
AiJLA.K.-U (JO *r\ CI ^ LiiCI CiUI C UltCIl iC&i LIidLII it SCCHla LO

i^<

be at first sieht. In Latin America, the revolt against

> f fj

Spain was kd 9 at first ; by Liberals and democrats,

but enird, in most cases, in the establishment of a

of unstable military dictatorships separated

bv mutinies. Onlv where the revolutionary faith is

* f ^

^iid widespread, and victory is not too Ion?

Jsr J, j #? iQ|

can the habit of co-operation survive the

.*hock involved in revolution, and enable the new

10 rest upon consent rather than upon

military force. A government without psycho-

authority be a tyranny.

REVOLUTIONARY POWER

IV. The Russian Revolution. Of the importance of

the Russian Revolution in the history of the world,

it is as yet too soon to judge ; we can only speak,
as yet, of some of its aspects. Like early Christianity,

it preaches doctrines which are international and
even anti-national; like Islam, but unlike Chris-
tianity, it is essentially political. The only part of
its creed, however, which, so far, has proved effec-
tive, is the challenge to Liberalism. Until November
i QI 7, liberalism had only been combated by reac-

*J / * <* *

tionaries ; Marxists, like other progressives, advocated
democracy, free speech, free press, and the rest of
the Liberal political apparatus. The Soviet Govern-
ment, when it seized power, reverted to the teaching
of the Catholic Church in its great days : that it is
the business of Authority to propagate Truth, both
by positive teaching and by the suppression of all
rival doctrines. This involved, of course, the estab-
lishment of an undemocratic dictatorship, depending
for its stability upon the Red Army, What was new
was the amalgamation of political and economic
power, which made possible an enormous increase
of governmental control.

The international part of Communist doctrine has
proved ineffective, but the rejection of Liberalism
has had an extraordinary success. From the Rhine
to the Pacific Ocean, all its chief doctrines are
rejected almost everywhere; Italy first, and then
Germany, adopted the political technique of the
Bolsheviks ; even in the countries that remain demo-
cratic, the Liberal faith has lost its fervour. Liberals
hold, for example, that when public buildings are

POWER

destroyed by incendiaries, an attempt should be

bv the police and the law-courts to discover
j,

the culprits; but the modem-minded man

holds, liie Xero, that the guilt should be attributed,

bv of manufactured evidence, to whatever

n J

party he personally dislikes. As regards such matters
as. speech, he holds. like St. Ambrose, that there

.4, tU <f> <J

should be freedom for his own party., but not for
any ether.

The result of such doctrines is to transform all
power, first, into revolutionary power, and then, by

Inevitable gradations, into naked power. This danger

iM # jl t^

is imminent; but as to the means of averting it I

shall say no more until a later stage.
The decay of Liberalism has many causes, both
and psychological. They are to be found
in the technique of war, in the technique of produc-
tions in the increased facilities for propaganda, and
in nationalism, which is itself an outcome of Liberal
doctrines. All these causes, especially where the
economic as well as political power, have
increased the power of governments.
The problems of our time, as regards the relation
of the individual to the State, are new problems,

Montesquieu will not enable us

to A modern community, just as much as

of the eighteenth century, requires, if it is to

happy prosperous, a sphere for individual

but this sphere must be defined afresh,

by new methods.

122

CHAPTER VIII

ECONOMIC POWER

ECONOMIC power, unlike military power, is not

primary, but derivative. Within one State, It depends
on law; in international dealings it is only on minor
issues that it depends on law, but when large issues
are involved it depends upon war or the threat of
war. It has been customary to accept economic
power without analysis, and this has led, in modern
times, to an undue emphasis upon economics, as
opposed to war and propaganda, in the causal
interpretation of history.

Apart from the economic power of labour, all
other economic power, in its ultimate analysis, con-
sists in being able to decide, by the use of armed
force if necessary, who shall be allowed to stand
upon a given piece of land and to put things into it
and take things from it. In some cases this is obvious.
The oil of Southern Persia belongs to the Anglo-
Persian Oil Company, because the British Govern-
ment has decreed that no one else shall have access
to it, and has hitherto been strong enough to enforce
its will; but if Great Britain were defeated in a
serious war, the ownership would probably change.
Rhodesian goldfields belong to certain rich men
because the British democracy thought it worth
while to make these men rich, by going to war with
Lobengula. The oil of the United States belongs to
certain companies because they have a legal title

123

POWER

it. and the armed forces of the United States
to enforce the law; the Indians, to
whom the oil regions originally belonged, have no
legal title, because they were defeated in war. The
iron ere of Lorraine belongs to the citizens of
France or Germany according to which has been
victor in the most recent war between those two
countries. And so on.

But the same analysis applies in less obvious cases.
'by must a tenant farmer pay rent for his farm,
he sell his crop? He must pay rent
the land "belongs" to the landowner. The
landowner owns the land because he has acquired
it by purchase or inheritance from some one else.
Pursuing the historv of Ms tide backwards, we come

^J f *?

ultimately to some man who acquired the land by

the arbitrary power of a ting exercised

in favour of some courtier, or a large-scale conquest

such as those of the Saxons and Normans. In the

Intervals between such acts of violence, the power

of the State is used to insure that ownership shall

according to law. And ownership of land is

power to decide who shall be permitted to be on

the land, For this permission the farmer pays rent,

in virtue of it he can sell his crop.

The power of the industrialist is of the same sort ;

it in the last analysis, upon the lock-out, that

is to say, the fact that the owner of a factory

can call upon the forces of the State to prevent

persons from entering it. In certain
of public opinion, the State may be reluctant
10 do the bidding of the owner in this respect ; the
124

ECONOMIC POWER

consequence is that stay-in strikes become possible.
As soon as they are tolerated by the State, ownership
ceases to be vested wholly in the employer, and
begins to be shared, in some degree 3 with the
employees.

Credit is more abstract than other kinds of eco-
nomic power, but is not essentially different; it
depends upon the legal right to transfer a surplus
of consumable commodities from those who have
produced them to others who are engaged in work
which is not immediately productive. In the case
of a private person or corporation which borrows
money^ the obligations can be enforced by law, but
in the case of a government the ultimate sanction
is the military power of other governments. This
sanction may fi ail , as in Russia after the Revolution;
when it fails, the borrower simply acquires the
property of the lender. For example, it is the Soviet
Government, not the pre-war shareholders, that has
power to decide who shall have access to the Lena
goldfields.

Thus the economic power of private persons
depends upon the decision of their government to
employ its armed forces, if necessary, in accordance
with a set of rules as to who shall be allowed access
to land; while the economic power of governments
depends in part upon their armed forces, and in
part upon the respect of other governments for
treaties and international law.

The connection of economic power with govern-
ment is to some extent reciprocal; that is to say, a
group of men may, by combination, acquire military

125

POWER

power, and ? having acquired it, may possess eco-
power. The ultimate acquisition of economic
may, in fact, be their original motive in
combining. Consider, for example, the semi-anarchic
conditions prevailing in a gold-rush such as that in
California in 18493 or - Victoria a few years later.
A who gold which he had acquired

legally on Ms own holding could not be said to
economic power until he had lodged his gold
in a Until then s he was liable to be robbed

and murdered. In a state of complete anarchy, in-
volving a war of all against all, gold would be

to a man so quick and sure with his

revolver as to be able to defend himself against

every assailant; and even to him, it could only be

a pleasant object to contemplate, since he could

satisfy Ms needs by the threat of murder, without

having to mate any payment. Such a state of affairs

would necessarily be unstable, except possibly in a

veiy sparse food-gathering population. Agriculture

is impossible unless there are means of preventing

and the theft of crops. It is obvious that an

anarchic community composed of more or less

civilized individuals, like the men in a gold rush,

will evolve a government of some kind, such

as a committee of Vigilante. Energetic men will

combine to prevent others from plundering them;

if is no outside authority to interfere, they may

also plunder others, but they will do so with modera-

for fear of Idling the goose that lays the golden

They may, for example, sell protection in

for a percentage of a man's earnings. This

126

ECONOMIC POWER

Is called Income tax, As soon as there are
determining tlie giving of protection the reign of
military force Is disguised as the reign of law, and
anarchy has ceased to exist. But the ultimate basis
of law and of economic relations is still the military
power of the Vigilantes.

The historical development has, of course s been
different from this, because It has been gradua! 3 and
not dependent, as a rule, upon men accustomed to
more civilized institutions than those under which
they were living at the moment. None the less,
something very much of the above sort occurs when-
ever there is foreign conquest, particularly if the
conquerors are a small minority; and ownership of
land can usually be traced back to some such con-
quest. In international economic relations, we have
not yet reached the stage represented by the first
formation of the committee of Vigilantes: the
stronger nations, individually, each still extract
money from the weaker by the threat of death. This
is illustrated by recent British dealings with Mexico
in the matter of oil, or rather would be but for the
Monroe Doctrine. A more forcible illustration was
the Reparation Clauses of the Versailles Treaty.
But in the Internal economic systems of civilized
countries the legal foundations are complex. The
wealth of the Church depends upon tradition ; wage-
earners have profited to some extent by trade
unionism and by political action; wives and children
have rights which are based upon the moral
sentiments of the community. But whatever the
economic rules made by the State may be ? military

127

POWER
power in the background is essential to their

the case of private persons, the rules made by
the State constitute the relevant part of the Law.

This part of the Law, like every other, is only
effective when it is supported by public opinion.
Public opinion^ in accordance with the eighth com-
mandment, reprobates theft, and defines "theft 53 as
taking property in a manner condemned by the
law. Thus the economic power of private persons
ultimately on opinion, namely on the moral
condemnation of theft, together with the sentiment
which allows theft to be defined by the law. Where
sentiment is weak or non-existent, property is
endangered; Stalin, for instance, began his career
as a virtuous bandit practising Ms vocation in the
of communism. We have seen how the
power of the Pope to release men from the moral
obligation of the eighth commandment enabled him
to control the Italian bankers in the thirteenth
centurv.

Economic power within a State, although ulti-
mately derived from law and public opinion, easily
a certain independence. It can influence
law by corruption and public opinion by propa-
It can put politicians under obligations
interfere -with their freedom. It can threaten
to a financial crisis. But there are very definite

to what it can achieve. Caesar was helped to
by Ms creditors, who saw no hope of repay-
through his success ; but when he had
he was powerful enough to defy them.

ECONOMIC POWER

Charles V borrowed from the Fuggers the money
required to buy the position of Emperor, but when
he had become Emperor he snapped Ms fingers at
them and they lost what they had lent. 1 The City
of London, in our own day } has had a similar
experience in helping German recovery ; and so has
Thyssen in helping to put Hitler into power.

Let us consider, for a moment^ the power of the
plutocracy in a democratic country. It has been
unable to introduce Asiatic labour in California or
Australia, except in early days in small numbers. It
has been unable to destroy trade unionism. It has
been unable, especially in Great Britain, to avoid
heavy taxation of the rich. And it has been unable
to prevent socialist propaganda. Per contra 3 it can
prevent governments composed of Socialists from
introducing Socialism, and if they are obstinate it
can bring about their downfall by engineering a
crisis and by propaganda. If these means were to
fail, it could stir up a civil war to prevent the

1 The Fuggers never could resist a Habsburg borrower.
They lent money, not only to Charles V, but to the Emperor
Maximilian before him, and to his Spanish descendants after
him. The Introduction to the Fuggw Mews Letters says; "At
least four million ducats had been borrowe4 from the Fuggers
by the Spanish kings and never repald s and it is not exaggera-
tion if the losses accruing from their business transactions with
the Hapsburgs in the west and east are estimated at eight
million florins, . . . But for them (the Fuggers} the Reformation
in Germany would probably have triumphed without opposi-
tion. The most capable members of this House strove for a
century, but nothing remained to their innumerable heirs but an
inordinately costly pile of parchments and heavily mortgaged
landed property.* 1

I 129

POWER

tf 1 * H /* f 9 * H * T *1I * It fl

ot Socialism. 1 hat is to say, where the

is simple and public opinion is definite, the

is powerless ; but where public opinion is

or baffled by the complexity of the issue,

the plutocracy can secure a desired political result.

The power of trade unions is the converse of the

power of the rich. Trade unions can keep out

coloured labour^ prevent their own extinction, secure

heavy death duties and income tax, and preserve

for their own propaganda. But they have

hitherto to bring about Socialism., or to keep

in power governments which they liked but which

a majority of the nation distrusted.

*/ af

Thus the power of economic organizations to
political decisions in a democracy is limited
by public opinion, which, on many important issues,
to be swayed even by very intensive propa-
ganda* Democracy, where it exists, has more reality
many opponents of capitalism are willing to
admit.

Although economic power, in so far as it is

regulated by law, ultimately depends upon ownership

of land, it is not the nominal landowners who have

the greatest share of it in a modern community. In

feudal times,, the men who owned the land had the

power; they could deal with wages by such measures

as the Statute of Labourers, and with the nascent

power of credit by pogroms. But where industrialism

lias developed, credit has become stronger than

ownership of land. Landowners borrow,

or unwisely, and in doing so become depen-

upon the banks. This is a commonplace, and

130

ECONOMIC POWER

usually regarded as entirely a consequence of changes
In the technique of production. In fact, however,
as may be seen from Its having happened in India^
where agricultural technique is not modem, it is
quite as much a result of the power and determin-
ation of the State to enforce the law. Where Law
is not all-powerful, money-lenders are, at intervals,
murdered by their debtors, who at the same time
bum all documents giving evidence of Indebtedness.
Everybody connected with the land, from prince to
peasant, has been addicted to borrowing ever since
there first were willing lenders ; but it is only where
Law is respected and enforced that the borrower
has to go on paying interest until he is ruined.
Where that happens, the economic power derived
from landed property passes from the borrower to
the lender. And in a modem community the lender
is usually a bank.

In a modern large corporation, ownership and
power are by no means necessarily combined. This
matter, as It affects the United States, is authori-
tatively dealt with in a very Important book, The
Modern Corporation and Private Property, by Berle and
Means (1932). They contend that, although owner-
ship Is centrifugal, economic power is centripetal;
by a very careful and exhaustive Investigation they
arrive at the conclusion that two thousand indi-
viduals control half the industry of the United
States (p. 33). They regard the modem executive
as analogous to the kings and Popes of former times ;
in their opinion, more is to be learnt as to his motives
by studying such men as Alexander the Great than

POWER

by considering him as the successor of the tradesmen

in the pages of Adam Smith. The

of power in these vast economic

is analogous so they argue to that

in tic mediaeval Church or in the National State,

is such as to enable corporations to compete

with States on equal terms.

is easy to see how this concentration has come
,t The ordinary shareholder in a railway com-
pany, for example, has no voice in the management
of the railway ; he may, in theory, have abont as
as the average voter at a Parliamentary
election has in the management of the country, but
in practice lie has even less than this. The economic
power of the railway is in the hands of a very few
men ; in America, It has usually been in the hands of
one man. In every developed country, the bulk of
the economic power belongs to a small body of indi-
viduals. Sometimes these men are private capita-
lists, as in America, France, and Great Britain;
sometimes they are politicians, as in Germany, Italy
and Russia, The latter system arises where economic
and political power have coalesced. The tendency
for economic power to become concentrated in few
is a commonplace, but this tendency applies
to power in general, not only to economic power.
A system in which economic and political power
coalesced is at a later stage of development
one in which they are separate, just as a Steel
Trust belongs to a later stage than a number of
small steel manufacturers. But I do not
as yet, to discuss the totalitarian State.

ECONOMIC POWER

The possession of economic power may lead to
the possession of military or propaganda power, but
the opposite process is just as apt to occur. Under
primitive conditions, military power is usually the
source of other kinds, in so far as the relations
between different countries are concerned. Alexander
was not as rich as the Persians, and the Romans
were not as rich as the Carthaginians ; but by victory
in war the conquerors, in each case, made themselves
richer than their enemies. The Mohammedans, at
the beginning of their career of conquest, were very
much poorer than the Byzantines, and the Teutonic
invaders were poorer than the Western Empire. In
all these cases, military power was the source of
economic power. But within the Arab nation, the
military and economic power of the Prophet and
his family was derived from propaganda; so was
the power and wealth of the Church in the West.

There are a number of instances of States which
have acquired military power because of their eco-
nomic strength. In antiquity, the Greek maritime
cities and Carthage are the most notable examples ;
in the Middle Ages, the Italian republics; and in
modern times, first Holland and them England. In
all these instances, with the partial exception of
England after the industrial revolution, economic
power was based upon commerce, not upon the
ownership of raw materials. Certain cities or States
acquired a partial monopoly of commerce through
a combination of skill with, geographical advantages*
(The latter alone were not sufficient, as may be
seen in the decline of Spain during the seventeenth

133

POWER
centurv. 1 , The obtained by commerce was

** *

IB part s OIi t^ e ^ re f mercenaries^ and was
into a means of obtaining military power.
This bad, however, the drawback that it

involved a constant danger of mutiny or large-scale
treachery; for this reason, Machiavelli disapproves
of It, advises armies composed of citizens. The
advice would be sound in the case of a large country

enriched bv commerce, but in the case of a Greek

City State or a small Italian Republic it was useless.

Economic power based on commerce can only be

stable when it belongs to a large community 3 or to

one h much more civilized than its neighbours.

Commerce, however, lias lost its importance.

Owing to improvement in the means of communica-

tion, geographical situation is less important than

it to be ; and owing to imperialism, the inipor-

State have less need of external trade than

they formerly had. The important form of economic

power, ia international relations, is now the posses-

of raw materials and food; and the most

important raw materials are those required in war.

Thus military and economic power have become

scarcely distinguishable. Take oil, for example: a

country cannot fight without oil, and cannot own

oil it is able to fight. Either condition

may Ml: the oil of Persia was useless to the Persians

they had no adequate armies, and the armed

of Germany will be useless to the Germans

they can obtain oil. A similar state of affairs

in regard to food; a powerful war-machine

an immense diversion of national energies

ECONOMIC POWER

from food production^ and therefore depends upon
military control of large fertile areas.

Economic and military power have never, in
the pastj been so closely interconnected as they
are at present. Xo nation can be powerful without
developed industrialism and access to raw materials
and food. Per contra^ it is by means of military power
that nations acquire access to such raw materials
as are not obtainable on their own territory. The
Germans, during the War, acquired by conquest
the oil of Rumania and the harvest of the Ukraine ;
and States which derive raw materials from the
tropics hold their colonies by their military strength
or by that of their allies.

The part played by propaganda in national power
has increased with the spread of education, A nation
cannot succeed in modern war unless most people
are willing to suffer hardship and many people are
willing to die. In order to produce this willingness,,
the rulers have to persuade their subjects that the
war is about something important so important^ in
fact, as to be worthy of martyrdom. Propaganda
was a large part of the cause of the Allied victory
in the War, and almost the sole cause of the Soviet
victory in the years 1918 to 1920. It is obvious that
the same causes which are leading to a coalescence
of military and economic power are also tending
towards a unification of both with propaganda
power. There is, in fact, a general tendency towards
the combination of all forms of power in a single
organizations which must necessarily be the State.
Unless counteracting forces come into play, the

POWER

distinction between different Mnds of power will

be of only historical interest.
At this point, we must consider a view which
Marxism made familiar, namely that capitalism
to generate a war of classes which will ulti-
mately dominate all other forms of conflict. It is
not by any means easy to interpret Marx, but he
to have thought that, in times of peace, all
economic power belongs to landowners and capita-
lists, who mill exploit their control to the uttermost,
stirring the proletariat to revolt. The pro-
letariats the vast majority, will win in war as
as they are united, and will institute a system
In which the economic power derived from land
and capital will be transferred to the community
as a whole. Whether or not this theory is exactly
of Marx, it is, broadly, that of present-day
communists,, and therefore deserves to be examined.
The view that all economic power belongs to
landowners and capitalists is one which, though
roughly true, and though I have hitherto assumed
it, has important limitations. Landowners and
are helpless without labour, and strikes,
when they are sufficiently determined and wide-
can secure for labour a share of economic
power. But the possibilities of the strike are such a
theme that I shall say no more about them.
The second question that arises is : Will capitalists,
in exploit their control to the uttermost? Where
are prudent, they do not do so, for fear of just
consequences as Marx foresaw. If they allow
the workers some share in prosperity they may

ECONOMIC POWER

prevent them from becoming revolutionary ; of this

the most notable example is in the United States,
where the skilled workers are on the whole Conserva-
tive.

The assumption that the proletariat are the
majority is very questionable. It is definitely untrue
in agricultural countries where peasant proprietor-
ship prevails. And in countries where there is much
settled wealth, many men who, from an economic
point of view, are proletarians, are politically on
the side of the rich, because their employment
depends upon the demand for luxuries, A class-war,
if it occurs, is therefore by no means certain to be
won by the proletariat.

Finally, most people 1 at a crisis^ feel more loyalty
to their nation than to their class. This may not
always be the case, but there is as yet no sign of
any change since 1914, when almost all nominal
internationalists became patriotic and bellicose. The
class-war, therefore, though it remains a possibility
of the distant future, is hardly to be expected while
the danger of nationalist wars remain as great as it
is at present.

It may be said that the present civil war in Spain,
and its repercussion in other countries,, prove that
the class-war is now dominant over nationalist
considerations. I do not thinly however, that the
course of events bears out this view. Germany and
Italy have nationalistic grounds for siding with
Franco; England and France have nationalistic
grounds for opposing him. It is true that British
opposition to Franco has been much less a hitherto,

POWER

it would have been if British interests alone
determined the action of our Government,
Conservatives naturally sympathize with
him* Nevertheless, as soon as such matters as Moroc-
can ore or naval control of the Mediterranean are
in British interests override political sym-

pathies. The grouping of the Great Powers is again
what it was before 1914, in spite of the Russian
Revolution. Liberals disliked the Tsar, and Con-
servatives dislike Stalin ; but neither Sir E. Grey nor
the Government could permit such matters of

to interfere with the pursuit of British interests.
To sum up what has been said in this chapter:
the economic power of a military unit (which may
be composed of several independent States) depends
[a} its capacity to defend its own territory,
(b; its ability to threaten the territory of others,
(r ; its possession of raw materials, food, and industrial
(<f) its power of supplying goods and services
by other military units. In all this, military
economic factors are inextricably mingled; for
Japan, by purely military means, has
acquired in China raw materials which are essential
to gnat military strength, and in like manner
and France have acquired oil in the Near
East, but both would have been impossible without
a considerable degree of previous industrial develop*
The importance of economic factors in war
increases as war becomes more mechanized
and scientific, but it is not safe to assume that the
side superior economic resources must neces-

be victorious. The importance of propaganda

ECONOMIC POWER

in generating national feeling has increased as much
as that of economic factors.
In the internal economic relations of a single

rt' "

State, the law sets limits to what can be done in the
way of extracting wealth from others. An individual
or a group must possess a complete or partial mono-
poly of something desired by others. Monopofies can
be created by law ; for example, patents, copyrights,
and ownership of land. They can also be created
by combination, as in the cases of trusts and trade
unions. Apart from what private individuals or
groups can extract by bargaining, the State retains
the right to take by force whatever it considers
necessary. And influential private groups can induce
the State to use this right, as well as the power of
making war, in a manner which is advantageous to
themselves though not necessarily to the nation as a
whole ; they can also cause the law to be such as is
convenient to themselves, e.g. by allowing combina-
tions of employers but not of wage-earners. Thus the
actual degree of economic power possessed by an
individual or group depends upon military strength
and influence through propaganda quite as much
as upon the factors usually considered in economics.
Economics as a separate science is unrealistic, and
misleading if taken as a guide in practice. It is one
element a very important element 3 it is true in a
wider study, the science of power.

CHAPTER IX

OVER OPINION

is easy to make out a case for the view that
is GixiniDOtent, and that all other forms of

m A* *

are derived from it. Armies are useless unless

the believe in the cause for which they are

or 5 in the case of mercenaries, have confi-

in the ability of their commander to lead them

to victory'. Law is impotent unless it is generally

Economic institutions depend upon re-

for the law; consider, for example, what would

to banking if the average citizen had no

to forger)*. Religious opinion has often

itself more powerful than the State. If, in

any a large majority were in favour of

Socialism, Capitalism would become unworkable.

On grounds it might be said that opinion is the

power in social affairs.

But this would be only a half-truth, since it ignores

the forces which cause opinion. While it is true that

is an essential element in military force, it is

true that military force may generate

Almost every European country has, at

this moment, the religion which was that of its

government in the late sixteenth century, and this

be attributed mainly to the control of perse-

and propaganda by means of the armed forces

In the several countries. It is traditional to regard

as due to mental causes, but this is only true

POWER OVER OPIX1OX

of the Immediate causes ; in the backgrounds there
is usually force in the service of some creed.

Per contra, a creed never has force at its command
to begin with, and the first steps in the production
of a wide-spread opinion must be taken by means of
persuasion alone.

We have thus a kind of see-saw: first, pure
persuasion leading to the conversion of a minority;
then force exerted to secure that the rest of the
community shall be exposed to the right propaganda;
and finally a genuine belief on the part of the great
majority, which makes the use of force again un-
necessary. Some bodies of opinion never get beyond
the first stage, some reach the second and then fail,
others are successful in all three. The Society of
Friends has never got beyond persuasion. The other
nonconformists acquired the forces of the State in
the time of Cromwell, but failed in their propaganda
after they had seized power. The Catholic Church,
after three centuries of persuasion, captured the
State in the time of Constantine, and then, by force,
established a system of propaganda which converted
almost aE the pagans and enabled Christianity to
survive the Barbarian invasion. The Marxist creed
has reached the second stage, if not the third, in
Russia, but elsewhere is still in the first stage.

There are, however, some important instances of
influence on opinion without the aid offeree at any
stage. Of these the most notable is the rise of science.
At the present day, science, in civilized countries,
is encouraged by the State, but in its early days this
was not the case. Galileo was made to recant, New-

POWER
ton was fav being made Master of the Mint

i i * *~? y

Lavoisier was girillotined on the ground that "la

n'a pas besoin de savants.*' Neverthe-

JT jL A

las men, and a few others like them, were the

of the modem world; their effect upon

social life has been greater than that of any other

known to history, not excluding Christ and

Aristotle. The only other man whose influence was

of comparable importance was Pythagoras, and his

is doubtful.

It is customary now-a-days to decry Reason as a

in human affairs, yet the rise of science is an

overwhelming argument on the other side. The men

of science proved to intelligent laymen that a

certain kind of intellectual outlook ministers to

military prowess and to wealth; these ends were so

ardently desired that the new intellectual outlook

that of the Middle Ages 5 in spite of the force

of tradition and the revenues of the Church and

the sentiments associated with Catholic theology.

The world ceased to believe that Joshua caused the

sun to stand still, because Copernican astronomy

was useful in navigation; it abandoned Aristotle's

physics, because Galileo's theory of falling bodies

it possible to calculate the trajectory of a

cannon-ball ; it rejected the story of the flood, because

is useful in mining; and so on. It is now

generally recognized that science is indispensable both

in war and in peace-time industry 3 and that, without

science, a nation can be neither rich nor powerful.

All this effect on opinion has been achieved by

science merely through appeal to fact : what science

POWER OVER OPINION

had to sav in the wav of general theories might be

rf j? S ^ f ^ U^f

questionable, but its results in the way of technique
were patent to all. Science gave the white man the
mastery of the world, which he has begun to lose only
since the Japanese acquired Ms technique.

From this example,, something may be learnt as
to the power of Reason in general. In the case of
science. Reason prevailed over prejudice because it
provided means of realizing existing purposes, and
because the proof that it did so was overwhelming.
Those who maintain that Reason has no power
in human affairs overlook these two conditions. If,
in the name of Reason, you summon a man to alter
Ms fundamental purposes to pursue, say, the
general happiness rather than his own power you
will fail, and you will deserve to fail, since Reason
alone cannot determine the ends of life. And you will
fail equally if you attack deep-seated prejudices
while your argument is still open to question, or
is so difficult that only men of science can see its
force. But if you can prove, by evidence which is
convincing to every sane man who takes the trouble
to examine it, that you possess a means of facilitating
the satisfaction of existing desires, you may hope,
with a certain degree of confidence, that men will
ultimately believe what you say. TMs 5 of course,
involves the proviso that the existing desires which
you can satisfy are those of men who have power
or are capable of acquiring it.

So much for the power of Reason in human affairs.
I come now to another form of un-forceful per-
suasion, namely that of the founders of reEgions.

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POWER

Here the process, reduced to Its bare formula, is
: if a certain proposition is true, I shall be able

to my desires ; therefore I wish this proposition

be tree; therefore, unless 1 have exceptional
self-control^ I believe it to be true.

Orthodoxy and a virtuous life* I am told* will enable
t * *

me to go to heaven when I die; there is pleasure in

this, and therefore I shall probably

believe it if it is forcibly presented to me. The cause

of here, is not, as in science, the evidence of

,f ft' Jr **

the pleasant feelings derived from belief,

with sufficient vigour of assertion in the

environment to make the belief seem not incredible.

The power of advertisement comes under the
head. It is pleasant to believe in so-and-so's
pills, since it gives you hope of better health ; it is
to believe in them, if you find their excellence
very frequently and emphatically asserted. Non-
rational propaganda, Hke the rational sort, must
to existing desires, but it substitutes iteration
for the appeal to fact.

The opposition between a rational and an ir-
rational appeal is, in practice, less clear-cut than
in the above analysis. Usually there is some rational
evidence, though not enough to be conclusive; the
consists in attaching too much weight
to it Belief, when it is not simply traditional, is a
of several factors: desire, evidence, and
iteration. When either the desire or the evidence is
nil, will be no belief; when there is no outside

belief will only arise in exceptional charac-
as founders of religions, scientific dis-

POWER OVER OPINION

coverers, and lunatics. To produce a mass belief, of
the sort that is socially important^ all three elements
must exist in some degree; but if one element is
increased while another Is diminished, the resulting
amount of belief may be unchanged. More propa-
ganda is necessary to cause acceptance of a belief
for which there is little evidence than of one for
which the evidence is strong, if both are equally
satisfactory to desire; and so on.

It is through the potency of iteration that the
holders of power acquire their capacity of influencing
belief. Official propaganda has old and new forms.
The Church has a technique which is in many ways
admirable, but was developed before the days of
printing, and is therefore less effective than it used
to be. The State has employed certain methods for
many centuries: the King's head on coins; corona-
tions and jubilees; the spectacular aspects of the
army and navy, and so on. But these are far less
potent than the more modem methods: education,
the press, the cinema, the radio, etc. These are
employed to the utmost in totalitarian States, but
it is too soon to judge of their success.

I said that propaganda must appeal to desire, and
this may be confirmed by the failure of State propa-
ganda when opposed to national feeling, as in large
parts of Austria-Hungary before the War, in Ireland
until 1922, and in India down to the present time.
Propaganda is only successful when it is in harmony
with something in the patient: his desire for an
immortal soul^ for health, for the greatness of his
nation, or what not. Where there is no such fimda-

K 145

POWER

mental reason for acquiescence, the assertions of
authority arc viewed with cynical scepticism. One
of the of democracy, from the govern-

point of view, is that it makes the average
to deceive, since he regards the govern-
as his government. Opposition to a war which
is not swiftly successful arises much less readily in a
democracy than under any other form of consti-
tution, la a democracy, a majority can only turn

the government by first admitting to them-
selves they were mistaken in formerly thinking
well of their chosen leaders, which is difficult and

Systematic propaganda, on a large scale, is at
presents i n democratic countries, divided between
the liiirches 3 business advertisers, political parties,
lie plutocracy, and the State. In the main, all
force work on the same side, with the ex-
ception of political parties in opposition, and even
they, if they have any hope of office, are unlikely to
oppose the fundamentals of State propaganda. In
the totalitarian countries, the State is virtually the
sole propagandist. But in spite of all the power of
propaganda, I do not believe that the
view would be widely accepted in the event
of in war. This situation suddenly gives to a

the kind of impotence that belongs
to governments opposed by nationalist feeling ;
the more the expectation of victory has been
to stimulate warlike ardour, the greater will
be the reaction when it is found that victory is
tainable. it is therefore to be expected that

POWER OVER OPINION

the next war, like the last, will end with a crop of
revolutions, which will be more fierce than those of

1917 and 1918 because the war will have been more
destructive. It is to be hoped that rulers realize the
risk they will run of being put to death by the mob,
which is at least as great as the risk that soldiers will
run of death at the hands of the enemy*

It is easy to overestimate the power of official
propaganda, especially when there is no competition.
In so far as it devotes itself to causing belief in false
propositions of which time will prove the falsity,
it is in as bad a position as the Aristotelians in their
opposition to Galileo. Given two opposing groups
of States, each of which endeavours to instil the
certainty of victory in war,, one side 5 if not both,
must experience a dramatic refutation of official
statements. When all opposing propaganda is for-
bidden, rulers are likely to think that they can cause
anything to be believed, and so to become over-
weening and careless. lies need competition if they
are to retain their vigour.

Power over opinion 3 like .all other forms of power a
tends to coalescence and concentration, leading
logically to a State monopoly. But even apart from
war it would be rash to assume that a State monopoly
of propaganda must make a government invulnerable.
In the long run, those who possess the power are
likely to become too flagrantly indifferent to the
interests of the common man, as the Popes were in
the time of Luther. Sooner or later., some new Luther
wiU challenge the authority of the State s and 3 Eke
Ms predecessor, be so quickly successful that it will

14?

POWER

be to suppress Mm. This will happen

the rulers will believe that it cannot happen.

But whether the change will be for the better it is

Impossible to foresee.

The effect of organization and unification, in the

matter of propaganda as in other matters, is to delay

revolution, but to make it more \iolent when it

When only one doctrine is officially allowed,

get no practice in thinking or in weighing

; only a great wave of passionate revolt

can dethrone orthodoxy; and in order to make the

sufficiently whole-hearted and violent

JTJk <*

to success, it will seem necessary to deny

even what was true in governmental dogma. The
only tMng that will not be denied will be the im-
portance of immediately establishing some orthodoxy,
this will be considered necessary for victory.
From a rationalist standpoint, therefore, the likeli-
hood of revolution in a totalitarian State is not
necessarily a ground for rejoicing. What is more to
be is a gradual increase in the sense of

ecmity 9 leading to a lessening of zeal, and giving
an opening for laziness the greatest of all virtues
in the ruler of a totalitarian State, with the sole
of noE-existejice.

CHAPTER X

CREEDS AS SOURCES OF POWER

THE power of a community depends not only upon
its numbers and Its economic resources and Its
technical capacity, but also upon Its beliefs. A fanati-
cal creed, held by all the members of a community,
often greatly Increases its power; sometimes, how-
ever, it diminishes It. As fanatical creeds are much
more In the fashion than they were during the nine-
teenth century, the question of their effect on power
Is one of great practical Importance. One of the
arguments against democracy Is that a nation of
united fanatics has more chance of success In war
than a nation containing a large proportion of sane
men. Let us examine this argument in the light of
history.

It should be observed, to begin with, that the
cases In which fanaticism has led to success are
naturally better known than those in which It has
led to failure, since the cases of failure have remained
comparatively obscure. Thus a too rapid survey
is apt to be misleading; but if we are aware of this
possible source of error, it Is not difficult to avoid.

The classic example of power through fanaticism
is the rise of Islam. Mohammed added nothing to
the knowledge or to the material resources of the
Arabs, and yet, within a few years of Ms death,
they had acquired a large empire by defeating their
most powerful neighbours. Undoubtedly, the religion

149

POWER

by the Prophet was an essential element In
of Ms nation. At the very end of Ms life,
declared war on the Byzantine Empire. cc The
Moslems were discouraged: they alleged the want
of money, or horses, or provisions: the season of
harvest, and the intolerable heat of the summer:
"Hell is much hotter/ said the indignant prophet.
He disdained to compel their service; but on his
return lie admonished the most guilty, by an
excommunication of fifty days' 5 (Gibbon, Chap. L).
Fanaticism, while Mohammed lived, and for a few
after Ms death, united the Arab nation, gave it
in battle, and promoted courage by the
promise of Paradise to those who fell fighting the

But although fanaticism inspired the first attempts
of the Arabs, it was to other causes that they owed
their prolonged career of victory. The Byzantine and
Persian Empires were both weakened by long and
indecisive wars; and Roman armies, at all times,
were weak against cavalry. The Arab horsemen were
incredibly mobile, and were inured to hardships
which their more luxurious neighbours found intoler-
able. These circumstances were essential to the first

of the Muslim.

Very soon sooner than in the beginning of any

great religion fanaticism was dethroned

the government. Ali, the Prophet's son-in-law,

the original enthusiasm among a section

of the faithful, but he was defeated in civil war,

and assassinated. He was succeeded in the

Caiptiate by the family of Ommiyah, who had been

150

CREEDS AS SOURCES OF POWER

Mohammed's bitterest opponents^ and had never
yielded more than a political assent to his religion,
"The persecutors of ilahomet usurped the inheri-
tance of his children ; and the champions of idolatry
became the supreme heads of his religion and empire.
The opposition of Abu Sophian 1 had been fierce and
obstinate; his conversion was tardy and reluctant;
his new faith was fortified by necessity and interest ;
he served, he fought, perhaps he believed; and the
sins of the time of ignorance were expiated by the
recent merits of the family of Ommiyah" (Gibbon^
ibid). From that moment onwards, for along time,
the Caliphate was distinguished by free-thinking
Iatitudinaxianism 3 while the Christians remained
fanatical. From the first, the Mohammedans showed
themselves tolerant in their dealings with conquered
ChristianSj and to this toleration which was in
strong contrast to the persecuting zeal of the Cath-
olic Church the ease of their conquest and the
stability of their Empire were mainly due.

Another case of the apparent success of fanaticism
is the victory of the Independents under Cromwell.
But it may be questioned how much fanaticism had
to do with Cromwell's achievements. In the contest
with the King, Parliament won mainly because it
held London and the Eastern Counties; both its
man-power and its economic resources far exceeded
those of the King, The Presbyterians as always
happens with the moderates in a revolution were
gradually thrust aside because they did not whole-
heartedly desire victory. Cromwell himself, when he

1 Father of the new Caliph Moawiyah.

151

POWER

achieved power, turned out to be a practical
politician, anxious to make the best of a difficult
situation; but he could not ignore the fanaticism
of Ms followers, which was so unpopular as to lead,
In tie end, to the complete downfall of his party.
It be said that, in the long run, fanaticism

did anything more to bring success to the English
Independents than to their predeccessors the Ana-
of Miinster.

On a larger scale 2 the history of the French
Revolution is analogous to that of the Common-
wealth in England: fanaticism, victory, despotism,
collapse, and reaction. Even in these two most
favourable instances, the success of the fanatics was
short-lived.

The in which fanaticism has brought nothing
but disaster are much more numerous than those in
which it has brought even temporary success. It
ruined Jerusalem in the time of Titus, and Constanti-
nople in 1453, when the West was rebuffed on
account of the minute doctrinal differences between
the Eastern and Western Churches. It brought about
the decay of Spain, first through the expulsion of
the Jews and Moors, and then by causing rebellion
in the Netherlands and the long exhaustion of the
Wars of Religion. On the other hand, the most
nations, throughout modem times, have
those least addicted to the persecution of
heretics.

Nevertheless, there is now a wide-spread belief

doctrinal uniformity is essential to national

This view is held and acted upon, with

152

CREEDS AS SOURCES OF POWER

the utmost rigour, in Germany and Russia, and

with slightly less severity in Italy and Japan, Many
opponents of Fascism in France and Great Britain
are inclined to concede that freedom of thought is
a source of military weakness. Let us therefore
examine this question once more, in a more abstract
and analytic fashion.

The question I am asking is not the broad one:
Should freedom of thought be encouraged^ or at
least tolerated? I am asking a narrower question: To
what extent is a uniform creed 5 whether spontaneous
or imposed by authority, a source of power? And to
what extent 3 on the other hand, is freedom of thought
a source of power?

When a British military expedition invaded Tibet
in 1905, the Tibetans at first advanced boldly,
because the Lamas had given them magic charms
against bullets. When they nevertheless had casual-
ties, the Lamas observed that the bullets were nickel-
pointed, and explained that their charms were only
effective against lead. After this, the Tibetan armies
showed less valour. When Bela Kun and Kurt Eisner
made Communist revolutions, they were confident
that Dialectical Materialism was fighting for them.
I forget what explanation of their failure was offered
by the Lamas of the Comintern. In these two
instances^ uniformity of creed did not lead to victory.

To arrive at the truth in this matter 5 it is necessary
to find a compromise between two opposite truisms.
The first of these is : men who agree in their beliefs
can co-operate more whole-heartedly than men who
disagree. The second is: men whose beliefs are in

153

POWER

are more likely to succeed
whose beliefs are mistaken. Let us examine
of these truisms.

That agreement is a help in co-operation is
obvious. In the civil war in Spain, co-operation has
difficult between anarchists., communists, and
Basque nationalists, though all equally desired the
defeat of Franco, In the same manner, though in
a less degreCj on the other side, co-operation has
difficult between GarHsts and modem-style
Fascists, There is need of agreement as to immediate
and also of a certain temperamental con-
geniality; but where these exist, great differences
of opinion may become harmless. Sir William
Xapier, the historian of the Peninsular War, admired

disliked Wellington; his book shows
that he considered the defeat of Napoleon regret-
table. But his sentiment of caste and his feeling- of
military duty overrode such purely intellectual
convictions, and he fought the French as com-
petently as if he had been a high Tory. In like
manner, should the occasion arise, British Tories
of the present day will fight Hitler just as vigorously
as they would if they did not admire him.

The umformity which is needed to give power to a
nation 5 a religion, or a party, is a uniformity in
practice, depending upon sentiment and habit.
this exists, intellectual convictions can be
It in Great Britain at the present day,

but it did not exist until after 1745. I* did not exist
in France in 1792* or in Russia during the Great
Tar and the subsequent civil war. It does not exist
154

CREEDS AS SOURCES OF POWER

in Spain at this moment. It is not difficult for a

government to concede freedom of thought when
it can rely upon loyalty In action; but when it
cannot^ the matter is more difficult. It is obvious that
freedom of propaganda is impossible during a civil
war ; and when there is an imminent danger of civil
war, the argument for restricting propaganda is
only slightly less overwhelming. In dangerous situ-
ations, therefore, there is a strong case for an imposed
uniformity.

Let us now take up our second truism : that it is
advantageous to have beliefs which are in accordance
with fact. So far as direct advantages are concerned,
this is only true of a limited class of beliefs : first,
technical matters, such as the properties of Hgfa
explosives and poison gases; secondly, matters
concerning the relative strengths of the opposing
forces. Even as regards these matters, it may be said,
only those who decide policy and military operations
need have correct views: it is desirable that the
populace should feel sure of victory, and should
underrate the dangers of attack from the air. Only
the governments the military chiefs, and their
technical staSs need know the facts; among all
others^ blind confidence and blind obedience are
what is most to be desired,

If human affairs were as calculable as chess, and
politicians and generals as clever as good chess
players, there might be some truth in this view. The
advantages of successful war are doubtful, but the
disadvantages of unsuccessful war are certain. If,
therefore, the supermen at the head of affairs could

POWER

foresee who was going to win, there would be no

wars. But in fact there are wars, and in every war

the government on one side, if not on both, must

miscalculated its chances. For this there are

many reasons : of pride and vanity, of ignorance,

of contagious excitement When the populace

is imorantlv confident, its confidence and its

A O * J

bellicose sentiment may easily be communicated
to the rulers., who can hardly attach the same weight
to unpleasant facts which they know but conceal
as to the pleasant facts that are being proclaimed
in even' newspaper and in every conversation.
Hysteria megalomania are catching, and govern-
ments have no immunity.

When war comes, the policy of concealment may
produce effects exactly opposite to those intended.
Some, at least, of the unpleasant facts which had
kept dark are likely to become patent to all,
the more men have been made to live in a fool's
paradise, the more they will be horrified and dis-
couraged by the reality. Revolution or sudden col-
is much more probable in such circumstances
than when free discussion has prepared the public

for painful events.

An attitude of obedicm^ when it is exacted from
subordinates, is inimical to intelligence. In a com-
munity in which men have to accept, at least out-
wardly, some obviously absurd doctrine, the best
must become either stupid or disaffected. There
will be s in consequence, a lowering of the intellectual
level, which must, before long, interfere with
progress. This is especially true when the
156

CREEDS AS SOURCES OF POWER

official creed is one which few intelligent men can

honestly accept. The Nazis have exiled most of the
ablest Germans, and this must, sooner or later, have
disastrous effects upon their military technique.
It is impossible for technique to remain long pro-
gressive without science, or for science to flourish
where there is no freedom of thought. Consequently
insistence on doctrinal uniformity, even in matters
quite remote from war, is ultimately fatal to military
efficiency in a scientific age.

We may now arrive at the practical synthesis
of our two truisms. Social cohesion demands a creed s
or a code of behaviour, or a prevailing sentiment, or,
best, some combination of all three ; without some-
tiling of the kind, a community disintegrates, and
becomes subject to a tyrant or a foreign conqueror.
But if this means of cohesion is to be effective, it
must be very deeply felt; it may be imposed by
force upon a small minority, provided they are not
specially important through exceptional intelli-
gence or character, but it must be genuine and
spontaneous in the great majority. Loyalty to a
leader, national pride, and religious fervour have
proved, historically, the best means of securing
cohesion ; but loyalty to a leader is less permanently
effective than it used to be, owing to the decay of
hereditary sovereignty, and religious favour is
threatened by the spread of free thought. Thus
national pride is left, and has become relatively
more important than in former times. It has been
interesting to observe the revival of this sentiment
in Soviet Russia, in spite of an official creed which

POWER

inimical to It though not more so, after
s Christianity.
How much Interference with freedom is necessary

for the maintenance of national pride? The inter-
which actually occur have mainly this
in view. In Russia, it is thought that those who
with the official orthodoxy are likely to
behave in an unpatriotic manner; in Germany
Italy, the strength of the government depends
Its appeal to nationalism, and any opposition
is to be in the interests of Moscow; in

France^ if liberty is lost, It will probably be to prevent
pro-German treachery. In all these countries, the
difficulty is that the class-conflict cuts across the
conflicts of nations, causing the capitalists in demo-
cratic countries^ and the Socialists and Communists
in Fascist countries, to be guided, to some extent,
bv other considerations than those of the national

interest. If this diversion from nationalist aims can

be prevented, a country's strength is likely to be

increased^ but not if it is necessary, for the purpose,

to lower the whole level of intelligence. For govern-

the problem is a difficult one, since national-

is a stupid ideal, and intelligent people perceive

that it is bringing Europe to ruin. The best solution

is to disguise it under some international slogan,

as democracy or communism or collective

security. Where this cannot be done, as in Italy and

Germany, outward uniformity demands tyranny,

and not easily produce a genuine inward

sentiment.

To up : A creed or sentiment of some kind is

CREEDS AS SOURCES OF POWER

essential to social cohesion, but if It is to be a source
of strength it must be genuinely and deeply felt
by the great majority of the population, including a
considerable percentage of those upon whom tech-
nical efficiency depends. Where these conditions
are absent, governments may seek to produce them
by censorship and persecution; but censorship and
persecution, if they are severe, cause men to become
out of touch with reality y and ignorant or oblivious
of facts which it is important to know. Since the
holders of power are biased by their power-impulses,
the amount of interference with freedom that con-
duces most to national power will always be less than
governments are inclined to believe; therefore a
diffused sentiment against interference, provided
it does not go so far as to lead to anarchy, is likely
to add to the national strength. But it is impossible
to go beyond these generalities except in relation to
particular cases.

Throughout the above discussion, we have con-
sidered only the more immediate effects of a fana-
tical creed. The long-term effects are quite different.
A creed which is used as source of power inspires,
for a time, great efforts, but these efforts, especially
if they are not very successful, produce weariness,
and weariness produces scepticism not a at first,
definite disbelief, which is an energetic frame of
mind, but mere absence of strong belief. 1 The more

1 On this subject, see the very interesting chapter "Fog of
Skepticism over Russia/* in Lyons's Assignment m Utopia. After
teffing of the enthusiasm with which the launching of the
Five-Year Plan had been greeted^ and of the gradual dis-

159

POWER

the of propaganda have been used to pro-

duce the greater will be the reaction,

In the a quiet life comes to seem the only
worth having. \Vhen s after a period of repose s
the population again becomes capable of excite-
ment 3 It will need a new stimulus^ since all the old
stimuli have become boring. Hence creeds which
are used too intensively are transitory in then-
effects. In the thirteenth century, men's imaginations
were dominated by three great men : the Pope, the
Emperor^ and the Sultan. The Emperor and the
Sultan have disappeared^ and the Pope's power is a
pale shadow of what it was. In the sixteenth and

illiisjoninent as the promised comforts failed to be realized,
he says: fc *I watched skepticism spread like a thick wet fog
over Russia, soaking into the flesh and spirits of men and
women. It cMIled the hearts of the leaders no less than of the
masses* Men who publicly spent all their time pumping up
optimisnij talked bitterly in private of the pianlessness of the
Plan, the terrible wastage of substance and energy, the disloca-
tion of a national economy swollen in some of its limbs and
shrunken in the rest. Doubts of the efficacy of enthusiasm were
expressed in a constantly greater stress on cash rewards at one
pole and harsh punishment at the other. . . . Draconic
decrees were invented almost weekly to discipline and repress
the common workers. One of them made a single day's absence
work punishable by loss of job, bread book, and living
: tantamount to a sentence of slow death." In another
lie write: "People under dictatorships, it has been
we! are condemned to a lifetime of enthusiasm. It is a

wearing sentence. Gladly would they burrow into the heart
of their misery and lick their wounds in private. But they
dare not ; sulking is next door to treason. Like soldiers weary
after a loog march, they must line up smartly for

CREEDS AS SOURCES OF POWER

early seventeenth centuries, the wars between Cath-
olics and Protestants filled Europe, and all lar^e-
scale propaganda was in favour of one or other'of
the two creeds. Yet ultimate victory went to neither
party, but to those who thought the issues between
them unimportant. Swift satirized the conflict in his
wars of Big-Endians and Little-Endians ; Voltaire's
Huron, finding himself in prison with a Jansenist,
thinks it equally silly of the government to demand
his recantation and of him to refuse it. If the world,
in the near future, becomes divided between Com-
munists and Fascists, the final victory will go to
neither, but to those who shrug their shoulders and
say, lite Candide, cela est bien dit, mais il faut
cultiver notre jardin." The ultimate limit to the
power of creeds is set by boredom, weariness, and
love of ease.

CHAPTER XI

THE BIOLOGY OF ORGANIZATIONS

WE have been considering hitherto the sentiments
which, are the most important psychological sources
of power; tradition, especially in the form of respect
for priests and kings; fear and personal ambition s
which are the sources of naked power ; the substi-
of a new creed for an old one, which is the
of revolutionary power ; and the interactions
between creeds and other sources of power. We come
now to a new department of our subject : the study
of the organizations through which power is exer-
cised, considered first as organisms with a life of
their own ? then in relation to their forms of govern-
ment, and finaEy as affecting the lives of the individ-
uals who compose them. In this section of our subject,
organisms are to be considered as far as possible
without regard to their purposes, in the way in
which men are considered in anatomy and bio-
chemistry.

The subject to be discussed in this chapter, namely
the biology of organizations, depends upon the fact
that an organization is also an organism, with a
life of its own, and a tendency to growth and decay.
Competition between organizations is analogous to
competition between individual animals and plants,
can be viewed in a more or less Darwinian
manner. But this analogy a like others, must not be
pressed too far; it may serve to suggest and to

162

THE BIOLOGY OF ORGANIZATIONS

illuminate, but not to demonstrate. For example, we
must not assume that decay is inevitable where
social organizations are concerned.

Power is dependent upon organization in the
main, but not wholly. Purely psychological power,
such as that of Plato or Galileo, may exist without
any corresponding social institution. But as a rule
even such power is not important unless it is propa-
gated by a Church, a political party, or some
analogous social organism. For the present, I shall
ignore power which is not connected with an
organization.

An organization is a set of people who are com-
bined in virtue of activities directed to common ends.
It may be purely voluntary, like a club ; it may be
a natural biological group, like a family or a clan ;
it may be compulsory, like a State; or it may be a
complicated mixture, like a railway company. The
purpose of the organization may be explicit or
unexpressed, conscious or unconscious; it may be
military or political, economic or religious, educa-
tional or athletic, and so on. Every organization,
whatever its character and whatever its purpose,
involves some redistribution of power. There must
be a government, which takes decisions in the name
of the wiiole body, and has more power than the
single members have, at any rate as regards the
purposes for which the organization exists. As men
grow more civilized and technique grows more
complicated, the advantages of combination become
increasingly evident. But combination always in-
volves some surrender of independence; we may

163

POWER

acquire increased power over others, but they also
acquire power over us. More and more, the important
decisions are those of bodies of men, not of single
individuals. And the decisions of bodies of men,
the members are very few, have to be effected
through governments. Thus government necessarily
plays a much larger part in the life of a modem
civilized community than in that of pre-industrial

Even a completely democratic government if such
a th,Ing were possible involves a redistribution of
power. If every man has an equal voice in joint
and if there are (say) a million members,
every man has a millionth part of the power over
the whole million, instead of complete power over
himself and none over others,, as he would have if
he were a solitary wild animal. This produces a
very different psychology from that of an anarchic
collection of individuals. And where as must always
be the case to some extent the government Is not
completely democratic, the psychological effect is
increased. The members of the government have
power than the others, even if they are demo-
cratically elected ; and so do officials appointed by a
democratically elected government. The larger the
organizations the greater the power of the executive.
Thus every increase in the size of organizations
inequalities of power by simultaneously
the independence of ordinary members
enlarging the scope of the initiative of the
government. The average man submits because much
can be achieved co-operatively than singly;

THE BIOLOGY OF ORGANIZATIONS

the exceptionally power-loving man rejoices., since it
provides Ms opportunity unless Indeed, the govern-
ment is hereditary, or the power-loving individual
belongs to a group (such as Jews in some countries'!
which is not allowed to occupy positions of importance.

Competition for power is of two sorts : between
organizations, and between individuals for leadership
within an organization. Competition between organ-
izations only arises when they have objects which
are more or less simi!ar 3 but incompatible; it may
be economic, or military, or by means of propaganda ?
or may involve any two or all three of these methods.
When Napoleon III was engaged in making himself
Emperor, he had to create an organization devoted
to his interests, and then to secure its supremacy.
For this purpose, he gave cigars to some people
this was economic ; to others he pointed out that he
was the nephew of Ms uncle this was propaganda;
finally he shot a number of opponents this was
military. 1 His opponents, meanwhile,, had confined
themselves to praising the Republican form of govern-
ment-, and had neglected the cigars and bullets. The
technique of acquiring dictatorship over what has
been a democracy has been familiar since Greek
times, and always involves the same mixture of
bribery, propaganda and violence. This, however,
is not our present theme, which is the biology of
organizations.

There are two important respects in which organi-
zations may differ : one is size, the other is what one
might call density of power, by which I mean the

2 See Simpson, The Mm of Louis

POWER

of control which they exert over their
members. Owing to the love of power which is to be
in who acquire governmental posts,

every organization will, in the absence of any counter-
acting fbrcej tend to grow both in size and in density
of power. It is possible for either form of growth to
be stopped by intrinsic causes ; an international chess
club s for example, may come to contain all chess-
players of sufficient excellence, and is not likely to
to control any of the activities of its members
those connected with chess. It might, under
an energetic secretary, seek to make more people
"chess-conscious," but this would be unlikely to
happen if the secretary were expected to be a good
chess-player; and if it did happen, the club might be
mined fay the defection of the best players. But
such cases are exceptional; where the purpose of
the organization is one making a general appeal
e.g., wealth^ or political domination growth in size
is only stopped either by the pressure of other
oiganizations, or by the organization in question
becoming world- wide; and growth in density is only
stopped where love of personal independence be-
comes overwhelmingly strong

The most obvious example of this is the State.
Every State which is sufficiently powerful aims at
foreign conquest; apparent instances to the contrary
only where a State ? from experience, knows

to be less strong than it seems, or, from in-
experience, believes itself to be less strong than it is.
The broad rule is that a State conquers what it can,
only when it reaches a frontier at which

166

THE BIOLOGY OF ORGANIZATIONS

some other State or States can exert a pressure as
strong as Its own. Great Britain has not acquired
Afghanistan, because Russia is as powerful there as
the British are; Napoleon sold Louisiana to the
United States because it was impossible for him to
defend it; and so on. So far as intrinsic forces are
concerned, every State tends to become world-wide.
But the power of a State is to a greater or smaller
extent geographical: it usually radiates from a
centrcj and grows less as the distance from the centre
increases. Consequently, at a greater or smaller
distance from the centre s its power is in equilibrium
with that of some other State 5 and there the frontiers
will be, unless the force of tradition interferes.

What has just been said is too abstract to be true
without modification. Small States exist, not by
their own power, but through the jealousies of large
ones; Belgium, e.g., exists because its existence is
convenient for England and France. Portugal has
large colonies, because the Great Powers cannot
agree about how to divide them. Since war is a
serious businesSj a State may, for a considerable
time, retain territory which it would lose if any
strong State chose to take it. But such considerations
do not destroy our general principle; they only
introduce frictional forces which delay the operation
of crude power.

It might be urged that the United States is an
exception to the principle that a State conquers what
it can. It is obvious that the conquest of Mexico, and
indeed of all Latin America, would offer no serious'
difficulties if the United States cared to undertake

167

POWER

task, The usual motives for political conquest,
however,, are at present inhibited in this case by
various counteracting forces. Before the Civil War,
the Southern States had imperialistic tendencies,
found an outlet in the Mexican War, leading
to the annexation of an immense territory. After the
Civil War, the settlement and economic development
of the West was a sufficient task to absorb the
energies of even the most energetic nation. As soon
as this business had been brought to some sort of
condiision s the Spanish- American War of 1898 gave
vent to a fresh impulse of imperialism. But annexa-
tion of territory has difficulties under the American
Constitution : it involves the admission of new voters,
who may be thought undesirable, and what is
more important it extends the area of internal
free trade, and is therefore damaging to important
economic interests. The Monroe Doctrine, which
involves a virtual protectorate over Latin America,
is therefore more satisfactory to the dominant
interests than annexation would be. If political
conquest were economically advantageous, no doubt
it would soon take place.

Concentration of power, in the political sphere,

has always been sought by rulers, and has not

always been resisted by those over whom they ruled.

Nominally, it was more complete in the great empires

of antiquity than in even the most dictatorial of

regimes, but in practice it was limited to

what was technically possible. The most urgent

for ancient monarchs was that of mobility.

In Egypt and Babylonia, this was facilitated by the

168

THE BIOLOGY OF ORGANIZATIONS

great rivers; but the Persian rale depended upon
roads. Herodotus describes the great royal road from
Sardis to Stisa, a distance of about 1,500 mHes s along
which the King's messengers travelled in time of
peace, and the King's armies in time of war. "The
true account of the road in question/ 5 lie says, "is
the following: Royal stations exist along its whole
length, and excellent caravanserais ; and throughout^
it traverses an inhabited tract s and is free from
danger. ... On leaving Phrygia the Halys lias to
be crossed; and here are gates through which you
must needs pass ere you can traverse the stream.
A strong force guards this post. . . , The boundary
between Cilicia and Armenia is the river Euphrates,
which it is necessary to cross in boats. In Armenia
the resting-places are fifteen in number, and the
distance is 56! parasangs (about 180 miles). There
is one place where a guard is posted. Four large
streams intersect this district, all of which have to
be crossed by means of boats. . . . The entire
number of stations is raised to one hundred and
eleven ; so many are in fact the resting-places that
one finds between Sardis and Susa. 35 He goes on to
state that, C travelling at the rate of 150 furlongs a
day" (about the speed of an army), "one will take
exactly ninety days to perform the journey." 1

Such a road, though it made an extended empire
possible, did not enable the King to exercise any
detailed control over the satraps of distant provinces.
A messenger on horseback might bring news from
Sardis to Susa in a month, but an army would
1 Book V, Chapters 52, 53, Rawlioson's translation.

POWER

require three months to march from Susa to Sardis.
When the lonians revolted against Persia, they
therefore had a number of months at their disposal
before they had to meet any troops not already in
Asia Minor. All ancient empires suffered from revolts 3
often led by provincial governors; and even when
no overt revolt occurred,, local autonomy was almost
unavoidable except when conquest was recent, and
was apt, in the course of time, to develop into
independence. No large State of antiquity was
governed from the centre to nearly the same extent
as is now customary; and the chief reason for this
was lack of rapid mobility.

The Roman Empire learnt from the Persians,
through the Macedonians, how to fortify the central
government by means of roads. Imperial messengers
could travel at an average rate often miles an hour,
day and night, throughout Western and Southern
Europe, North Africa, and Western Asia. But in
each province the imperial post was controlled by
the military commander^ who could therefore move
his armies without the knowledge of anyone not
in their line of march. The swiftness of the legions
and the tardiness of news resulted often in advantage
to rebels against the Emperor in Rome. Gibbon, in
telling of Constantine's march from the north of
Gaul to invade Italy, contrasts the ease of his move-
with the difficulty of Hannibal's :

"When Hannibal marched from Gaul into Italy,

he was obEged 3 first to discover, and then to open,

a way over mountains and through savage nations

never yielded a passage to a regular army.

170

THE BIOLOGY OF ORGANIZATIONS

The Alps were then guarded by nature, they are
now fortified by art. But in the course of the inter-
mediate period, the generals, who have attempted
the passage^ have seldom experienced any difficulty
or resistance. In the age of Constantine, the peasants
of the mountains were civilized and obedient subjects ;
the country was plentifully stocked with provisions.,
and the stupendous highways, which the Romans had
carried over the Alps, opened several communica-
tions between Gaul and Italy, Constantine preferred
the road of the Cottian Alps, or as it is now called of
Mount Cenis, and led Ms troops with such active
diligence, that he descended into the plain of Pied-
mont before the court of Maxentius (in Rome) had
received any certain intelligence of his departure
from the banks of the Rhine."

The result was that Maxentius was defeated and
Christianity became the religion of the State. The
history of the world might have been different if
the Romans had had worse roads or a swifter means
of transmitting news.

Steamships, railways, and finally aeroplanes have
made it possible for governments to exercise power
quickly at great distances. A revolt in the Sahara or
in Mesopotamia can now be quelled within a few
hourSj whereas a hundred years ago it would have
required months to send an army $ and there would
have been great difficulty in preventing it from dying
of thirst, like Alexander's soldiers in Baluchistan.

Quite as important as the mobility of persons and
goods is the rapidity in the transmission of news.
In the war of 1812, the battle of New Orleans was

POWER

after the conclusion of peace, though neither
of tie armies was aware of this fact. At the

i JT '* '

end of the Seven Years War, British forces captured
Cuba and the Philippines, but this was not known
in Europe until peace had been signed. Until the
invention of the telegraph, ambassadors in time of
peace and generals in time of war had necessarily a
verv great latitude, since their instructions could not

n O '

account of the most recent occurrences. Agents
of a distant government were very frequently called
upon to act on their own judgment, and thus became
much more than mere transmitters of a centrally
directed policy.

It is not only the absolute rapidity in the trans-
mission of messages that is important, but also, and
still more 5 the fact that messages travel faster than
human beings. Until little over a hundred years ago,
neither messages nor anything else could travel faster
than a horse. A highwayman could escape to a
neighbouring town, and reach it before the news of
Ms crime, Now-a-days, since news arrives first, escape
is more difficult. In time of war all rapid means of
communication are controlled by governments, and
this greatly increases their power.

Modem techniques not only through the rapidity
in the transmission of messages, but also through
railways, telegraph^ motor traffic, and governmental
propaganda, has made large empires much more
capable of stability than they were in former times,
Persian satraps and Roman proconsuls had enough
independence to make rebellion easy, Alexander's
fdl apart at his death. The empires of Attila

173

THE BIOLOGY OF ORGANIZATIONS

and Jenghls Khan were transitory ; and the nations
of Europe lost most of their possessions in the New
World. But with modern technique most empires are
fairly safe except against external attack, and revolu-
tion is only to be expected after defeat in war.

Technical causes, it should be observed, have not
operated wholly in the direction of making it easier to
exercise the power of the State at a distance ; in
some respects they have had the opposite effect.
Hannibal's army subsisted for many years without
keeping open its line of communications, whereas
a large modern army could not last more than two
or three days in such conditions. Navies, so long as
they depended upon sails, were world-wide in their
operations; now, since they must frequently refiiel,
they are unable to operate long at a distance from
some base. In Nelson's day, if the British commanded
the seas in one region they commanded them every-
where; now, though they may have command of the
home waters, they are weak in the Far East, and
have no access to the Baltic.

Nevertheless, the broad rale is that it is easier
now than in former days to exert power at a distance
from the centre. The effect of this is to increase the
intensity of competition between States, and to make
victory more absolute, since the resulting increase of
size need not impair efficiency. A World State is
now a technical possibility, and might be established
by a victor in some really serious world-war, or,
more probably, by the most powerful of the neutrals.

As regards density of power, or intensity of organi-
zation (as it may also be caHed),thequestionsinvolved

POWER

are complex and very important. The State, in every
civilized country,, is far more active now than at
any former time ; in Russia, Germany, and Italy it
interferes in almost all human concerns. Since men
love power, and since, on the average, those who
achieve power love it more than most, the men who
control the State may be expected, in normal
circumstances, to desire an increase of its internal
activities just as much as an increase of its territory.
Since there are solid reasons for augmenting the
functions of the State, there will be a predisposition,
on the part of ordinary citizens, in favour of ac-
quiescing in the wishes of the government in this
respect. There is s however, a certain desire for
independence, which will, at some point, become
strong enough to prevent, at least temporarily, any
further increase in the intensity of the organization.
Consequently love of independence in the citizens
and love of power in the officials wiU, when organiza-
tion reaches a certain intensity, be in at least
temporary equilibrium, so that if organization were
increased love of independence would become the
stronger force, and if it were diminished official love
of power would be the stronger.

Love of independence is, in most cases, not an
abstract dislike of external interference, but aversion
from some one form of control which the government
thanks desirable prohibition, conscription, religious
conformity, or what not. Sometimes such sentiments
can be gradually overcome by propaganda and
education^ which can indefinitely weaken the desire
for personal independence. Many forces conspire

THE BIOLOGY OF ORGANIZATIONS

to mate for uniformity In modem communities
schools, newspapers, cinema, radio, driU, etc. Density

of population has the same effect. The position of
momentary equilibrium between the sentiment of
Independence and the love of power tends, therefore,
under modern conditions, to shift further and further
In the direction of power, thus facilitating the crea-
tion and success of totalitarian States. By education
love of independence can be weakened to an extent
to which, at present, no limits are known. How far
the internal power of the State may be gradually
increased without provoking revolt It is Impossible
to say; but there seems no reason to doubt that,
given time, It can be increased far beyond the point
at present reached even in the most autocratic
States.

Organizations other than States are, in the main,
subject to laws of the same kind as those that we
have been considering, except that they cannot use
force. I omit from consideration those that afford
little outlet to power-Impulses, such as clubs. The
most important, for our purposes, are political
parties, Churches, and business corporations. Most
Churches aim at being world-wide, however little
they may expect their aim to be realized ; also most
of them endeavour to regulate some of the most
intimate concerns of their members, such as marriage
and the education of children. When it has proved
possible, Churches have usurped the functions of the
State, as in Tibet and the patrimony of St. Peter,
and to some extent throughout Western Europe until
the Reformation. The power impulses of Churches,

175

POWER

with some exceptions^ have been limited only by
lack of opportunity,, and by the fear of revolt in the

shape of heresy or schism. Nationalism, however,
has greatly diminished their power in many countries,
and has transferred to the State many emotions which
formerly found their outlet in religion. 1 The diminu-
tion in the strength of religion is partly the cause and
partly the effect of nationalism and the increased
strength of national States.

Political parties were, until recently, very loose
organizations, which made only very slight attempts
to control the activities of their members.Throughout
the nineteenth century^ Members of Parliament
frequently voted against their Party leaders, with the
consequence that the results of divisions were far
more unpredictable than they are now. Walpole,
North s and the younger Pitt controlled their sup-
porters, to a certain extent^ by means of corruption;
but after the diminution of corruption,, and while
poitics was still aristocratic, governments and party
leaders had no way of bringing effective pressure to
bear. Now, especially in the Labour Party, men are
pledged to orthodoxy, and failure to keep this pledge
usually involves both political extinction and finan-
cial loss. Two kinds of loyalty are demanded : to
the programme, in the opinions professed ; and to the
leaders, in the action taken from day to day. The

1 The late W. A. S. Hewiosj who was instrumental in the

coffl^rsicBi of Joseph Chamberlain to tariff reform, told me

Ms ancestors had been ardent Roman Catholics, but that

his attached themselves to the British Empire as

had to the Church. This was a typical development,

176

THE BIOLOGY OF ORGANIZATIONS

programme Is decided in a manner which Is nominally
democratic, but Is very much Influenced by a small
number of wire-pullers. It Is left to the leaders to
decide, in their parliamentary or governmental
activities, whether they shall attempt to carry out
the programme ; if they decide not to do so. It is the
duty of their followers to support their breach of
faith by their votes, while denying, in their speeches,
that it has taken place. It Is this system that has given
to leaders the power to thwart their rank-and-file
supporters, and to advocate reforms without having
to enact them,,

But although the density of organization in all
political parties has greatly increased, It Is still
immeasurably less, in democratic parties, than among
Communists, Fascists, and Nazis. These latter are
a development, historically and psychologically, not
of the political party, but of the secret society. Under
an autocratic government, men who aim at any
radical change are driven to secrecy, and, when
they combine, fear of treachery leads to a very
strict discipline. It is natural to demand a certain
way of life, as a safeguard against spies. The risk,
the secrecy, the present suffering, and the hope of
future triumph, produce a quasi-religious exaltation,
and attract those to whom this mood comes easily.
Hence within a revolutionary secret society, even if
Its aim is anarchism, there is likely to be a very
severe despotism, and a supervision extending far
beyond what would usually be considered political
activity. Italy after the fall of Napoleon became
filled with secret societies, to which some were

M 177

POWER

by revolutionary theory and others by
practice. The same thing happened in
Russia with the rise of terrorism. Both Russian
Communists and Italian Fascists were deeply im-
pregnated with the mentality of the secret society,
and the Nazis were modelled on them. When their
several leaders acquired the government, they ruled
the Staie in the same spirit in which they had
formerly ruled their parties. And the correlative
spirit of submission is demanded of their followers
throughout the world.

The growth in the size of economic organizations
suggested to Marx Ms views on the dynamics of
power. Much of what he said on the subject has
proved true,, but is applicable to all organizations
that give an outlet to power-impulses, not only to
those that have economic functions. The tendency
has been 5 in production, to give rise to trusts that
are coextensive with some great State and its satel-
lite,, but seldom, outside the armament industry, to
the formation of world-wide trusts. Tariffs" and
colonies have caused big business to be intimately
associated with the State. Foreign conquest in the
economic sphere has come to be dependent upon
the military strength of the nation to which the
trust in question belongs ; it is no longer, except to
a limited extent, conducted by the old methods of
purely business competition. In Italy and Germany
the relation between big business and the State is
intimate and obvious than in democratic
countries* but it would be a mistake to suppose that
big business^ under Fascism, controls the State more

THE BIOLOGY OF ORGANIZATIONS

than It does in England, France, or America. On the
contrary. In Italy and Germany the State has used
the fear of Communism to make itself supreme over
big business as over everything else. For example, in
Italy a very drastic capital levy is being introduced,
whereas a much milder form of the same measure,
when proposed by the British Labour Party, caused
a capitalist outcry which was completely successful.

When two organizations with different but not
incompatible objects coalesce, the result is something
more powerful than either previous one, or even both
together. Before the War, the Great Northern went
from London to York, the North Eastern from York
to Newcastle, and the North British from Newcastle
to Edinburgh; now the L.NJE.R. goes all the way,
and is- obviously stronger than the three older
Companies put together. Similarly there is an
advantage if the whole steel industry, from the ex-
traction of the ore to ship-building, is controlled by
one corporation. Hence there is a natural tendency
to combination; and this is true not only in the
economic sphere. The logical outcome of this process
is for the most powerful organization, usually the
State, to absorb all others. The same tendency would
lead in time to the creation of one World-State, if the
purposes of different States were not incompatible.
If the purpose of States were the wealth, health,
intelligence, or happiness of their citizens, there would
be no incompatibility; but since these, singly and
collectively, are thought less important than national
power, the purposes of different States conflict^ and
cannot be furthered by amalgamation. Consequently

Z79

POWER

a World-State is only to be expected^ If at all, through

the conquest of the world by some one national
StatCy or through the universal adoption of some
creed transcending nationalism, such as first socialism
and then communism^ seemed to be in their early
days.

The limitation to the growth of States owing to
nationalism is the most important example of a
limitation which may be seen also in party politics
in religion. I have been endeavouring, in this
chapter, to treat organizations as having a life inde-
pendent of their purpose. I think it important to note
that, up to a point, this is possible ; but of course it
Is cidy up to a point that it is possible. Beyond that
point, it is necessary to consider the passion to which
the organization appeals.

The desires of an individual can be collected into
groups, each group constituting what some psycho-
call a "sentiment. 33 There will be to take
politically important sentiments love of home, of
family, of country^ love of power, love of enjoyment,
and so on; there will also be sentiments of aversion,
such as fear of pain, laziness s dislike of foreigners,
hatred of alien creeds^ and so on. A man's senti-
ments at any given moment are a complicated pro-
duct of Ms nature, Ms past history, and his present
circumstances. Each sentiment, in so far as it is one
many men can gratify co-operatively better
singly, will, given opportunity, generate one or
organizations designed for its gratification.
Take, for example^ family sentiment. This has given
or has helped to give rise, to organizations for

180

THE BIOLOGY OF ORGANIZATIONS

housing^ education, and life Insurance, which are
matters in which the interests of different families
are in harmony. But it has also in the past more
than in the present given rise to organizations
representing the interests of one family at the expense
of others, such as those of the retainers of the Monta-
gues and Capulets respectively. The dynastic State
was an organization of this sort. Aristocracies are
organizations of certain families to procure their own
privileges at the expense of the rest of the com-
munity. Such organizations always involve, in a
greater or less degree, sentiments of aversion : fear,
hatred, contempt., and so on. Where such sentiments
are strongly felt, they are an obstacle to the growth
of organizations.

Theology affords illustrations of this limitation.
The Jews, except during a few centuries round about
the beginning of the Christian era, have had no wish
to convert the Gentiles ; they have been content with
the feeling of superiority which they derived from
being the Chosen People. Shinto, which teaches that
Japan was created earlier than the rest of the w r orld 5
is not intended or likely to appeal to those who are
not Japanese. Everyone knows the story of the Auld
Lichts arriving in heaven, and being prevented from
discovering that there were other people there, for
fear of spoiling their enjoyment of celestial bliss. The
same kind of sentiment may take a more sinister
form: persecution may be so pleasant to the perse-
cutor that he would find a world without heretics
intolerably dulL Similarly Hitler and Mussolini 3
since they teach that war is the noblest of human

181

POWER

activities, could not be happy If they had conquered

tlie world and had no enemies left to fight. In like
manner; party politics become uninteresting as soon
as party has unquestionable supremacy.

Thus an organization which derives Its appeal to
the individual from such motives as pride, envy, hate,
contempt, or pleasure in contest/ cannot fulfil Its
purpose if It is world-wide. In a world where such
passicns are strong, an organization which becomes
world-wide is pretty sure to break up, since it will
have lost its motive force.

It will be seen that, in what has just been said, we
have been considering rather the sentiments of ordi-
nary members of organizations than those of their
governments. Whatever the purpose of an organiza-
tion, its government derives satisfaction from power 3
faas 3 in consequence, an interest not identical
with that of the members. The desire for universal
conquest is therefore likely to be stronger in the
government than in the members.

Nevertheless, there is an important difference
between the dynamics of organizations embodying
sentiments to be realized by co-operation and that
of those whose purposes essentially involve conflict.
This is a large subject, and for the present I am
merely concerned to point out the limitations to the
study of organizations without regard to their
purposes,

1 have spoken of the growth of an organizations

1 I am aductlng merdy sporting contests^ which can be
organized within a single governing authority such as the
*C*C.

i8a

THE BIOLOGY OF ORGANIZATIONS

and of its competition with rivals. To complete the
Darwinian analogy, something should be said about
decay and old age. The fact that men are mortal is
not ? in itself, a reason for expecting organizations to
die* and yet most of them do. Sometimes they suffer
a \iolent death from without, but this is not what, at
the moment, I wish to consider. "What I wish to
consider is the feebleness and slowness of movements
analogous to that of old men, which is often seen in
old organizations. One of the best examples is the
Chinese Empire before the revolution of 191 1. It was
by far the most ancient government in the world ; it
had shown military prowess at the time of the rise of
Rome 3 and during the great days of the Caliphate;
it had a continuous tradition of high civilization, and
a long established practice of government by able
men chosen through the medium of competitive
examination. The strength of the tradition, the
tyranny of centuries of habit 3 was the cause of col-
lapse. It was impossible for the literati to understand
that other knowledge than that of the Confucian
classics was needed for coping with the nations of the
West, or that the maxims which had been adequate
against semi-barbarian frontier races were of no avail
against Europeans. What makes an organization
grow old is habit based upon success; when new
circumstances arise, the habit is too strong to be
shaken off. In revolutionary times, those who have
the habit of command never realize soon enough that
they can no longer count upon the correlative habit
of obedience. Moreover the respect exacted by ex-
alted persons, originally with a view to confirming

183

POWER

their authority, in time develops Into a stiff etiquette
that hampers them In action and prevents them from
acquiring the knowledge needed for success. Kin^s

A O r O

can no longer lead in battle because they are too
sacred; they cannot be told unpalatable truths,
because they would execute the teller. In time thev

f j

become mere symbols, and some day people wake up
to the fact that they symbolize nothing of any value.
There is, however, no reason why all organizations
should be mortal. The American Constitution, for
example, does not invest any man or body of men
with the kind of reverence that leads to ignorance and
impotence,, nor does it readily lend Itself, except to
some extent in relation to the Supreme Court, to the
accumulation of habits and maxims which prevent
adaptation to new circumstances. There is no obvious
reason why an organization of this sort should not
persist indefinitely. I thinly therefore, that, while
most organizations perish sooner or later, either from
rigidity or from external causes 3 there is no inherent
reason which makes this unavoidable. At this point,
the biological analogy, if pressed^ becomes mis-
leading.

CHAPTER XII

POWERS AND FORMS OF GOVERNMENTS

APART from the purpose of an organization, its most
important characteristics are (i) size, (2) power over
memberSj (3) power over non-members, (4) form of
government. The question of size I shall consider in
the next chapter ; the others are to form our present

topic.

Legally tolerated organizations other than the
State have powers over their members which are
strictly limited by law. If you are a banister, a soli-
citor, a medical man, or an owner of racehorses, you
may be disbarred, struck off the rolls, disqualified^
or warned off the turf. All these punishments involve
disgrace^ and the first three are likely to involve
extreme economic hardship. But however unpopular
vou may be in your profession, your colleagues cannot
legally do more than prevent you from practising it.
If you are a politician, you must be accepted as
orthodox by your party if you wish to have the help
of the machine ; but you cannot be prevented from
Joining another part} 7 or from living a peaceful life
remote from parliamentary contests. The powers
of organizations other than the State over their
members depend upon the right of expulsion, and
are more or less severe according to the degree
of obloquy and financial hardship attached to
expulsion.

The powers of the State over its citizens are, on the

185

POWER

contrary, unlimited, except in so far as constitutional

previsions may forbid arbitrary arrest or spoliation.
In the United States, no man can be deprived of life,
liberty, or property except by due process of law,

i.e. by the demonstration to the judicial authorities
that he has been guilty of some act previously de-
clared deserving of such punishment In England,
although the powers of the executive are similarly
limited, the legislature is omnipotent : it can pass an
Act to the effect that Mr. John Smith is to be put to
death, or deprived of Ms property, without the neces-
sity of establishing that he has committed a crime.
In the form of Acts of Attainder, this power was one
of the means by which ParHament acquired control

of the government. In India and in totalitarian
w

States 3 this power belongs to the executive, and is

freely exercised. This is in accordance with tradition,

tf *

where States have lost this omnipotence they
have done so as a result of the doctrine of the Rights
of Man,

The powers of organizations over non-members
are less easy to define. The powers of a State in rela-
tion to foreigners depend upon war and the threat
of war; this applies even to such matters as tariffs
and immigration laws, both of which, in China, were
regulated by treaties accepted as a result of military
defeat. Nothing but lack of military force limits the
power of one State over another; given sufficient
preponderance, even extermination or removal of
the whole population may be decreed^ and often has
been. Consider, for example, the Book of Joshua, the
Babylonian captivity, and the confinement of North

186

POWERS AND FORMS OF GOVERNMENTS

American Indians to reservations when not exter-

The external powers of private organizations are
apt to be regarded by the State with jealousy, and
are therefore largely extra-legal. They depend mainly
upon the boycott and other more extreme forms of
intimidation. Such terroristic influence is usually a
prelude to revolution or anarchy. In Ireland^ assas-
sination brought about the downfall, first of the
landlords, and then of the English domination. In
Tsarist Russia, the revolutionaries depended very
largely upon terroristic methods. The Nazis won
their way by acts of illegal violence. At the present
moment^ in Czechoslovakia, those among the German
population who will not join Henlein's party receive
such notices as "you are a marked man* 5 or "y oiir
turn will come 55 ; and in view of what happened to
opponents when the Germans occupied Austria^ such
threats are very effective, A State which cannot cope
with this kind of illegality usually soon comes to
grief. If the illegality is that of a single organization
with a definite political programme, the result is
revolution, but if it is that of bands of brigands or
mutinous soldiers, there may be a lapse into mere
anarchy and chaos.

In democratic countries a the most important pri-
vate organizations are economic. Unlike secret
societieSj they are able to exercise their terrorism
without illegality., since they do not threaten to Mil
their enemieSj but only to starve them. By means of
such threats which do not need to be explicitly
littered they have frequently defeated even govem-

187

POWER

merits, for example recently in France. So long as
private organizations can decide whether individuals
not belonging to them shall, or shall not, have
enough to eat, the power of the State is obviously

O * i rf*

subject to verv serious limitations. In Germany and

j> * *

Italy, no less than in Russia, the State has become
supreme over private capital in this respect.

1 come now to the question of forms of govern-
ment, and it is natural to begin with absolute mon-
archy, as the oldest^ simplest^ and most wide-spread
of the constitutions known in historical times. 1 am
not now distinguishing between the king and the

t,j^ a^j* tj

tyrant; 1 am considering simply one-man rule,
whether that of a hereditary king or that of a usurper.
This form of government has prevailed in Asia at all
times ? from the beginning of Babylonian records
through the Persian monarchy, the Macedonian and

&J if #

Roman domination^ and the Caliphate, to the days
of the Great Mogul. In China, it is true, the Emperor
was not absolute, except during the reign of Shih
Huang Ti (third century B.C.), who burnt the books;
at other tlmes 3 the literati could usually defeat him.
But China has always been an exception to all rules.
At the present day, though absolute monarchy is
supposed to be in decline, something very like it
prevails in Germany, Italy, Russia, Turkey., and
Japan. It is evident that this form of government is
one which men find natural.

Psychologically, its merits are clear. In general,
the ruler leads some tribe or sect to conquest^ and
Ms followers feel themselves partakers in his glory.
Cyrus led the Persians in revolt against the Medes ;

188

POWERS AND FORMS OF GOVERNMENTS

Alexander gave power and wealth to Hs Macedon-
; Napoleon brought victory to the armies of the
Revolution. The relations of Lenin and Hitler to
their parties were of the same sort. The tribe or
of which the conqueror is the follows Mm

willingly, and feels itself magnified by Ms successes ;
those whom lie subdues feel fear mixed with admira-
tion. Xo political training 3 no habit of compromises
is required ; the only instinctive social cohesion that
is necessary is that of the small inner band of fol-
lowers, which is rendered easy by the fact that all
depend upon the heroes achievements. When lie dies,
Ms work may fall to pieces^ like that of Alexander ;
but with luck an able successor may cany it on until
the new power has become traditional,

The difficulty of anv other relation between men.

ft f

as a bond uniting them in one community, except
that of command and obedience, may be illustrated

bv the relations of States. There are innumerable

instances of small States growing into great empires
bv conquest, but hardly anv of voluntary federation.

a T, 3 rf * *

For Greece in the time of PHIip, and Italy in the
Renaissance* some degree of co-operation between
different sovereign States was a matter of life or
death* and yet it could not be brought about. The
same thing is tme of Europe in the present day* It is
not easy to induce men who have the habit of coin-
maud, or even only of independence, to submit
voluntarily to an external authority. When this does
happen, it is usually in such a case as a gang of
pirates, where a small group hopes for great gains
at the expense of the genera! public,, and has such

POWER

confidence in a leader as to be willing to leave the
direction of the enterprise In Ms hands. It is only in
this kind of situation that we can speak of govern-
ment arising from a "social contract," and In this
the contract Is Hobbes's rather than Rousseau's
i.c. It Is a contract which the citizens (or pirates)
make with each other, not a contract between them
and their leader. The psychologically Important
point Is that men are only willing to agree to such a
contract when there are great possibilities of plunder
or conquest. It is this psychological mechanism*
though usually not In an overt form, which has
enabled kings who were not absolute to become more

nearly so bv successful war,
* *

The conclusion to be derived from these considera-
tions Is that, while something like voluntary consent
to the arbitrary power of a monarch Is necessary from
a band of companions who are near the throne, the
majority of Ms subjects usually submit, at first, from
fcar 3 and afterwards as the result of custom and
tradition. The "social contract/* In the only sense.
In which It Is not completely mythical. Is a contract
among conquerors, which loses its raison d*etre If they
are deprived of the benefits of conquest. So far as
the majority of subjects are concerned, fear 5 rather
than consent, is the original cause of submission to
a Mng whose power extends beyond a single tribe.

It Is because the motives of loyalty In an Inner
group and fear in the general population are so
simple and easy that almost all enlargement In the
areas of sovereign States has been by conquest, not
by voluntary federation; and it Is also for this reason

POWERS AXD FORMS OF GOVERNMENTS

that monarchy has played such a In

history.

Monarchy has, however, very great disadvantages.
If it Is hereditary. It Is unlikely that the rulers mil

continue to be able ; and if there Is any uncertainty
about the law of succession, there will be dynastic
civil wars. In the East ? a new ruler usually began by
putting Ms brothers to death ; but If one of diem
escaped he set up a claim to the throne as the only
chance of avoiding execution. Read, for example,
Mainucci's Storia do Afogor, which deals with the
Great Moguls, and makes it evident that wars of
succession did more than anything else to weaken
their empire. In our own country the Wars of the
Roses point the same moral.

If, on the other hand, the monarchy is not heredi-
tarv, there Is even more likelihood of civil war. This

* y

danger Is Illustrated bv the Roman Empire from the

%*? ^

death of Commodus to the accession of Constaatme.
Only one really successful solution of tins problem
has ever been devised : it Is the method by which the
Pope Is elected. But this Is the ultimate term of a
development which started from democracy; and
even in this case the Great ScMsm shows that the
method is not infallible.

A still more serious disadvantage of monarchy Is
the fact that It Is usually indifferent to the interests
of subjects, except when they are identical with those
of the king. Identity of Interest is likely to exist up
to a point. The king has an Interest In suppressing
internal anarchy, and will therefore be supported by
the law-abiding section of Ms subjects whenever the

191

POWER

clanger of anarchy is great. He has an interest in the
wealth of his subjects, since it makes the taxes more
productive. In foreign war, the interests of the king
Ms subjects will be thought to be identical so
long as he is victorious. So long as he continues to
extend his dominions, the inner group, to whom he
is a leader rather than a master^ will find Ms sendee
profitable. But Mngs are led astray by two causes:
pride, and reliance upon an inner group which has
lost its power of command. As for pride: though the
Egyptians endured the Pyramids, the French, in the
end., grumbled about Versailles and the Louvre ; and
moralists have always inveighed against the luxury
of courts. "Wine is wicked, women are wicked, the
Mng is wicked," we are told in the Apocrypha.

The other cause for the decay of monarchy is more
important. Kings acquire the habit of relying upon
some section of the population : the aristocracy, the
Church, the higher bourgeoisie, or perhaps a geo-
graphical group 3 such as the Cossacks. Gradually
economic or cultural changes diminish the power of
the favoured group, and the king shares their unpopu-
larity. He may even, like Nicholas II, be so unwise
as to lose the support of the groups that should be
most completely on his side; but this is exceptional.
Charles I and Louis XVI were supported by the
aristocracy, but fell because the middle class was
opposed to them.

A king or despot can maintain his power if he is
astute in internal politics and successful externally.
If he is quasi-divine, his dynasty may be prolonged
indefinitely. But the growth of civilization puts an

192

POWERS AND FORMS OF GOVERNMENTS

end to belief in Ms divinity; defeat in war Is not
always avoidable ; and political astuteness cannot be
an invariable attribute of monarchs. Therefore
sooner or later^ if there is no external conquest, there

* 1 j_ * J j.1 1L * * T 11*1 I

is revolution, and the monarchy is either aboiisiied
or shorn of its power.

The natural successor to absolute monarchy is
oligarchy. But oligarchy mav be of many : it

o * Q * * v *

may be the m!e of a hereditary aristocracy., of the
or of a Church or political party. These produce

verv different results. A hereditary landed aris-

*< *

tocraey is apt to be conservative, proud, stupid 5 and
rather brutal; for these reasons among others, it is
always worsted in a struggle with the higher bour-
geoisie, A government of the rich prevailed, in all the
free cities of the Middle Ages, and survived in Venice
until Napoleon extinguished it. Such governments
have beexis on the whole, more enlightened and
astute than any others known to history. Venice, in
particular, steered a prudent course through cen-
turies of complicated intrigue, and had a diplomatic
service far more efficient than that of aoy other State,
Money made in commerce is made by cleverness
which is not dictatorial, and this characteristic is
displayed by governments composed of successful
merchants. The modem industrial magnate is a
totally different type, partly because he deals Largely
with the technical manipulation of materials,, partly
because Ms dealings with human beings are pre-
ponderantly with an army of employee rather than
with equals who must be persuaded, not coerced.
Government by a Church or political party

POWER

\vMch may be called a theocracy is a form of oli-
garchy which has assumed a new Importance in
recent years. It had an older form, which survived

in the Patrimony of St. Peter and in the Jesuit regime
in Paraguay, but its modem form begins with
Calvin's rule in Geneva apart from the very brief

sway of the Anabaptists in Minister. Still more
modem was the Rule of the Saints, which ended in
England at the Restoration, but survived for a con-
siderable period in New England. In the eighteenth
nineteenth centuries, this type of government
might have been thought permanently extinct. But
it was relived by Lenin, adopted in Italy and
Germany, and seriously attempted in China.

In a country such as Russia or China 3 where the
bulk of the population is illiterate and without poli-
tical experience, the successful revolutionary found
himself in a very difficult situation, Democracy on
Western lines could not possibly succeed; it was
attempted in CMna 5 but was a fiasco from the first
On the other hand, the revolutionary parties in
Russia had nothing but contempt for the territorial
aristocracy and the rich of the middle class ; none of
the objects they had in view could be achieved by
an oligarchy chosen from these classes. They accord-
ingly said : "We, the party that has made the revolu-
tion, will retain political power until such time as
the country is ripe for democracy; and meanwhile
we wiH educate the country in our principles."

The result, however 3 was not quite what the Old

had hoped. Undo: the stress of civil war,

famine, and peasant discontent, the dictatorship bo-

POWERS AXD FORMS OF GOVERNMENTS

came gradually more severe, while the straggle with-
in the Communist Party* after the death of
transformed it from government by a Party to one-
man rule. All this was not difficult to foresee, 1 wrote
in 1920; "The Bolshevik theory requires that every
country, sooner or later,, should go through what
Russia is going through now. And in ever}- country
in such a condition we may expect to find the govern-
ment falling into the hands of ruthless meB 3 who have
not by nature any love for freedom, and who will see
importance in hastening the transition from
dictatorship to freedom. ... Is it not almost in-
evitable that men placed as the Bolsheviks are placed
in Russia . . . will be loath to relinquish their
monopoly of power, and will find reasons for remain-
ing until some new revolution ousts them?" For such
reasons, it is difficult to regard a theocracy as a step
towards democracy, though in other respects it may
have merits.

The merits of theocracies, when they represent
some new creed, are sometimes very great, and some-
times almost non-existent. In the first place, the
believers form a nucleus for social cohesion after revo-
lution, and they can easily co-operate because they
agree on fundamentals; it is therefore possible for
them to establish a vigorous government that knows
its own mind. In the second place, as already ob-
served, the Party or Church is a minority not of birth
or wealth, to which it is possible to entrust political
power where democracy, for whatever reason, must
fail. In the third place, the believers are almost sure
to be more energetic and politically conscious than

POWER

the average of the population, to whom, in many
they have been superior Intellectually.
Certain creeds* however Including some that have
become powerful attract only stupid people, apart
from the leaven of adventurers In search of jobs.
Intelligence, therefore, Is a characteristic of only
some among theocracies.

When power is confined to the members of one
sect, there Is Inevitably a severe Ideological censor-
ship. Sincere believers will be anxious to spread the
true faith; others will be content with outward
conformity. The former attitude kills the free exercise
of intelligence ; the latter promotes hypocrisy. Educa-
tion and literature must be stereotyped, and designed
to produce credulity rather than Initiative and

A *

criticism. If the leaders are Interested In their own
theology^ there will be heresies, and orthodoxy will
come to be more and more rigidly defined. Men who
are strongly Influenced by a creed differ from the
average In their power to be moved by something
more or less abstract and more or less remote from
daily life. If such men control an unpopular govern-
ment, the result is to make the bulk of the population
even more frivolous and thoughtless than It would
naturally be a result which is much promoted by
the knowledge that all thought Is potentially heretical 9
and therefore dangerous. The rulers, In a theocracy>
are likely to be fanatics ; being fanatics, they will be
severe; being severe, they wiU be opposed; being
0pp0sed a they will become more severe* Their power-
impulses will wear, even to themselves, the cloak of
reigioiis zeal s and will therefore be subject to no
196

POWERS AXD FORMS OF GOVERNMENTS

restraint. Hence the rack the stake, the Gestapo
the Cheka.

We have seen that monarchy and oligarchy have

both merits and demerits The principal demerit of
both is that, sooner or later, the government
so Indifferent to the desires of ordinary that

there is revolution. Democracy, when firmly estab-
lished, is a safeguard against this kind of instability.

'_? ^

Since civil war Is a very grave evil, a form of govern-
ment which makes It unlikely is to be commended.
Now civil war Is unlikely where, if It occurred, it

would give victory to the previous holders of power.
Other things being equa! 9 If power Is In the hands of
the majority, the government Is more likely to win
in a civil war than if It represents only a minority.
This s so far as it goes 9 Is an argument for democracy ;
but various recent Instances show that It is subject to
many limitations.

A government is usually called "democratic" If a
fairly large percentage of the population has a share
of political power. The most extreme Greek demo-
cracies excluded women and slaves., and America
considered Itself a democracy before women liad the
vote. Clearly an oligarchy approaches more nearly
to a democracy as the percentage possessed of poli-
tical power Increases. The characteristic features of
oligarchy only appear when this percentage is rather

small*

In all organizations, but especially in States s the
problem of government is twofold. From the point
of view of the government, the problem Is to secure
acquiescence from the governed; from the point of

197

POWER

view of the governed, the problem is to make the
government take account,, not only of Its own Inter-
but of the Interests of those over whom It
has power. If either of these problems is completely
solved, the other does not arise ; if neither is solved,
there is revolution. But as a rule a compromise solu-
tion is reached. Apart from brute force, the principal
factors on the government side are tradition, religion,
fear of foreign enemies, and the natural desire of
most to follow a leader. For the protection of the
governed, only one method has been hitherto dis-
covered which is in any degree effective, namely,
democracy,

Democracy, as a method of government, is subject
to some imitations which are essential, and to others
which are, in principle a avoidable. The essential
limitations arise chiefly from two sources : some de-
cisions must be speedy, and others require expert
knowledge. When Great Britain abandoned the gold
standard in 1931, both factors -were involved: it was
absolutely necessary to act quickly, and the questions
involved were such as most men could not under-
stand. The democracy, therefore, could only express
its opinion retrospectively. War, though less technical
than currency, has even more urgency : it is possible
to consult Parliament or Congress (though as a rule
this is something of a farce, since the issue will have
been already decided in fact, if not in form), but it
is impossible to consult the electorate.

Owing to these essential limitations, many of the

important matters must be entrusted by the

electorate to the Government. Democracy is success-

198

POWERS AND FORMS OF GOVERNMENTS

la so far as the Government is obliged to
public opinion. The Long Parliament decreed
It could not be dissolved without Its own consent;
what has hindered subsequent Parliaments from doing
likewise? The answer is neither simple nor reassuring.
In the first place, in the absence of a revolutionary
situation, members of the outgoing Parliament were

& **** ~j>

assured of a pleasant life even if they belonged to the
defeated party; most of them would be re-elected,
and. If they lost the pleasures of government, they
would the almost equal satisfactions to be

obtained by publicly criticizing the mistakes of their
rivals. And in due course thev would return to

power. If, on the other hand, they made it impossible
for the electorate to get rid of them by constitutional
means,, they would create a revolutionary situation,
which would endanger their property and perhaps
their lives. The fate of Strafford and Charles 1 was a
warning against rashness.

All this would be different if a revolutionary
situation were already in existence. Suppose a Con-
servative Parliament had reason to fear that the
next election would produce a Communist majority,
which would expropriate private property without
compensation. In such, a case 3 the party in power
might wel imitate the Long Parliament, and decree
its own perpetuity. It would hardly be restrained
from this action by reverence for the principles of
democracy; it would be restrained, if at all, only by
a doubt as to the loyalty of the armed forces.

The moral is that a democracy, since it is compelled
to entrust power to elected representatives, cannot

199

POWER

any security that, in a revolutionary situation,
its representatives will continue to represent its
wishes. The wishes of Parliament may., in easily
conceivable circumstances^ be opposed to those of a
majority of the nation. If Parliament, in such cir-
cumstances, can rely upon a preponderance offeree,
it may thwart the majority with impunity.

This is not to say that there is a better form of
government than democracy. It is only to say that
there are issues as to which men will fight, and when
they no form of government can prevent civil

war. One of the most important purposes of govern-
ment should be to prevent issues from becoming so
acute as to lead to civil war; and from this point of
view democracy, where it is habitual, is probably
preferable to any other known form of government.

The difficulty of democracy, as a form of govern-
ment, is that it demands a readiness for compromise.
The beaten party must not consider that a principle
is involved of such importance as to make it pusil-
lanimous to yield ; on the other hand, the majority
must not press the advantage to the point at which
it provokes a revolt. This requires practice, respect
for the law, and the habit of believing that opinions
otter than one's own may not be a proof of wicked-
ness* What is even more necessary^ there must not
be a state of acute fear, for, when there is such a
men look for a leader and submit to him when
fonndj with the result that he probably becomes
a dictator. Given these conditions, democracy is
capable of being the most stable form of government
hitherto devised. In the United States, Great Britain*

3OO

POWERS AXD FORMS OF GOVERNMENTS

the Dominions,, Scandinavia, and Switzerland, it
runs hardly any danger except from without; in
France it is becoming more and more firmly estab-
lished. And in addition to stability, it has the merit
of making governments pay some attention to the
welfare of their subjects not 5 perhaps, as much
as might be wished, but very much more than
is shown by absolute monarchies, oligarchies, or
dictatorships.

Democracy, in a modern great State, certain
disadvantages, not, indeed, as compared with other
forms of government over the same area, bat
inevitably owing to the immense population con-
cerned. In antiquity, the representative system being
unknown, the citizens assembled in the market-place
voted personally on each issue. So long as the State
was confined to a single city, gave to each

citizen a sense of real power and responsibility 3 the
more so as most of the issues were such as his own
experience enabled Mm to understand. But owing
to the absence of an elected legislature, democracy
could not extend over a wider area. When Roman
citizenship was granted to the Inhabitants of other
parts of Italy, the new citizens could not s in practice,
acquire any share of political power, since this could
only be exercised by those who were actually in
Rome. The geographical difficulty was overcome, in
the modem world, by the practice of choosing
representatives. Until very recently, the represent-
ative, once chosen a had considerable Independent
power, since men living at a distance from the
capital could not know what was happening

POWER

or in sufficient detail, to be able to express
their opinion effectively. Now, however, owing to
broadcasting* rapid mobility, newspapers, etc., large
countries have become more and more like lie
City States of antiquity; there Is more personal
contact ''of a sort''; between men at the centre and

i, rf

voters at a distance ; followers can bring pressure on
leaders, and leaders reciprocally can exert influence
on followers, to an extent which was impossible in
the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The result

has been to diminish the importance of the repre-
sentative and increase that of the leader. Parliaments
are no Icnger effective intermediaries between voters
governments. All the dubious propagandist
devices formerly confined to election times can now
be employed continuously. The Greek City State,
with its demagogues, tyrants, body-guards, and exiles,
has revived because its methods of propaganda have
again become available.

Except when he feels enthusiasm for a leader, the
voter in a large democracy has so little sense of
power that he often does not think it worth while to
use his vote. If he is not a keen propagandist for one
of the important parties^ the vastness of the forces
that decide who shall govern makes Ms own part
in them appear completely negligible. In practice,
all that he can do* as a rule, is to vote for one or
other of two men, whose programmes may not
Mm, and may differ very little, and who,
be may with impunity abandon their pro-

as soon as they are elected. If, on the other
hand, there is a leader whom he enthusiastically

POWERS AND FORMS OF GOVERNMENTS

admires, the psychology involved is that which we

considered in connection with monarchy: it is that
of the tie between a king and the tribe or sect of Ms
active supporters. Even* skilM political agitator or
organizer devotes himself to stimulating devotion to

O "-"

an individual. If the individual is a great leader, the

result is one-man government ; if he Is not, the caucus

which nas secured his election becomes the

,ver.

TMs is not true democracy. The question of the
preservation of democracy when governmental
are large is a very difficult one, to which I shaH
return in a later chapter.

So far, we have been concerned with the forms of
government in politics. But the forms which occur
in economic organizations are so important and
peculiar that they require separate consideration.

In an industrial undertaking^ there is, to begin
with, a distinction analogous to that between citizens
and slaves in antiquity. The citizens are those who
have invested capital in the undertaking^ while the
slaves are the employees. I do not wish to press the
analogy. The employee differs from a slave in the
fact that he is free to change Ms job if lie can, and
In his right to spend his non-working hours as he
pleases The analogy that I wish to bring out is in
relation to government. Tyrannies, oligarchies^ and
democracies differed in their relations to free men;
in relation to slaves,, they were all al&e. Similarly
in a capitalist industrial enterprise the power may
be divided among investors rnonarchically, oHgarchi-
cally, or democratically, but employees, unless they

203

POWER

are investors* have no share In it whatever, and are
thought to have as little claim as slaves were thought

to have in antiquity.

corporations exhibit a great variety of
oligarchical forms of constitution. I am not thinking

O O-

at the moment, of the fact that the employees are
exclnded from the management ; I am thinking only
of the shareholders. The best account of this subject
known to me is in a book to which I have already

alluded. The Modern Corporation and Private Property^
by Berle and Means. In a chapter called "The
Evolution of Control," they show how oIigarcMe$ 3
often with very small participation in ownership,
have acquired the government of vast aggregations
of capital. By means of devices concerned with the
proxy committee,, the management "can virtually
dictate their own successors. "Where ownership is
sufficiently subdivided, the management can thus
become a self-perpetuating body even though its
share in the ownership is negligible. The nearest
approach to this condition which the present writer
has been able to discover elsewhere is the organiza-
tion which dominates the Catholic Church. The
Pope selects the Cardinals and the College of
Cardinals in turn selects the succeeding Pope." 1 This
form of government exists in some of the largest
existing corporations, such as the American Tele-
phone and Telegraph Company,, and the United
State Steel Corporation, with assets (on January i,
i 30} of four billion and two billion dollars respec-
tively* In the latter., the directors collectively own

1 Op. cit, pp. 87-8.

POWERS AND FORMS OF GOVERNMENT*

only i -4 per cent of the shares ; yet the economic"* 2
power is wholly theirs.
The complexity of the organization of a

A rf a *^$ **"<*<

corporation is apt to be greater than of any

political institution. Directors^ shareholders^ deben-
ture holders, executive staff, and ordinary- employees,
all have different functions. The government is
usually in form an oligarchy, of which the units are
shares^ not shareholders, and the directors are their
chosen representatives. In practice^ the directors
usually have much more power, as the

shareholders, than belongs to the government of a
political oligarchy as against the individual oligarchs.
Per where trade unionism is well organized,,

the employees have a considerable voice as to the
terms of their employment In capitalistic enterprises
there is a peculiar duality of purpose : on the
hand they exist to provide goods or services for the
public, and on the other hand they aim at providing
profits for the shareholders. In political organizations,
the politicians are supposed to be aiming at the
public good, not only at maximizing their own
salaries; this pretence is kept up even under des-
potisms. This is why there is more hypocrisy in
politics than in business, But under the combined
influence of democracy and socialistic criticism,, many
important industrial magnate have acquired the
art of political humbug,, and have ieamt to pretend
that the public good is their motive for making a
fortune. This is another example of the modem
tendency to the coalescence of politics and economics.
Something must be said as to the ways in which, in

305

POWER

a given institution, the forms of government change.
This is a matter as to which history gives no sure
guidance. We have seen that, in Egypt and Babylonia,
monarchy was fully developed at the period
when historical records begin ; from anthropological
evidence, it may be presumed to have developed
out of the authority of chiefs originally limited by
a Council of Elders. Throughout Asia (excluding
China), absolute monarchy has never, except under
European influence, shown any sign of giving way
to any other form of government. In Europe, on
the contrary, it has never, in historical times 3 been
for long periods. In the Middle AgeSj the
power of kings was limited by that of the feudal
nobility, as well as by the municipal autonomy of
the more important commercial cities. After the
Renaissance, the power of kings increased through-
out Europe 5 but this increase was brought to an end
by the rise of the middle class, first in England, then
in France, and then in the rest of Western Europe,
Until the Bolsheviks dismissed the Constituent As-
sembly at the beginning of 1918., it might have been
thought that parliamentary democracy was certain
to prevail throughout the civilized world.

Movements away from democracy are 5 however,
no new thing. They occurred in many Greek City
States^ in Rome when the Empire was established,
and in the commercial republics of mediaeval Italy,
Is it possible to discover any general principles deter-
mining the various developments towards or away
from democracy?

The two great influences against democracy in

POWERS AND FORMS OF GOVERNMENTS

the past have been wealth and war. We may
the Medici and Napoleon as illustrating these two.

Men whose wealth is obtained by commerce are s
as a rule s less harsh and more conciliatory than
whose power is due to ownership of land ; they are,
therefore, more skilful in buying their may into
power, and governing afterwards so as not to rouse
violent resentments, than are those whose stains is
merely hereditary and traditional. The gains made
in commerce, for example in Venice or in tie towns
of the Hanseatic League, were made at die
of the foreigner, and accordingly aroused no un-
popularity at home, such as attaches to the manu-
facturer who makes Ms fortune by employing
sweated labour. An oligarchy of substantial burghers
is therefore the most natural and stable form of
government for a predominantly commercial com-
munity* And this easily develops into monarchy if
one family is much richer than any other.

War operates by a different and more violent
psychology. Fear makes men wish for a leader^ and
a successful general rouses the passionate admiration
which is the obverse of fear. Since victory seems,
at the moment^ the one thing of real importance, the
successM general easily persuades Ms country to
entrust Mm with supreme power. So long as the
continues, he is judged indispensable, and when it is
over he may have become very difficult to remove.

The modem movements against democracy,
though they are connected with a war mentality, are
not quite analogous to the case of Napoleon. Broadly
speaking, the German and Italian democracies fell,

207

POWER

not because a majority was tired of democracy, but

the preponderance of armed force was not

on the side of the numerical majority. It may seem

that the civil government should ever be
stronger than the eonunander-in-cliiefj yet this is the
wherever democracy is firmly rooted in the
habits of the nation. Lincoln, in appointing a
Commander-in-chief, wrote : "They tell me that you
at dictatorship. The way to achieve this is to
win victories. I look to you for the victories, and I
will risk the dictatorship. 53 He could safely do so 5
no American army would have followed a
in an attack upon the civil government. In
the seventeenth century, Cromwell's soldiers were
quite willing to obey Mm in dismissing the Long
Parliament ; in the nineteenth, the Duke of Welling-
ton, if he had ever harboured such a project, could
not have got a man to follow Mm.

Democracy, when it is new, arises from resentment
against the previous holders of power; but so long
as it is new it is unstable. Men who represent them-
selves as enemies of the old monarchs or oligarchs
may succeed in restoring a monarcMcal or oli-
garchical system; Napoleon and Hitler could win
public support when the Bourbons and Hohenzollem
could not. It is only where democracy has lasted long
enough to become traditional that it is stable.
Cromwell, Napoleon, and Hitler appeared in the
early days of democracy in their respective countries ;
in view of the first two, the tMrd should be in no
way surprising. Nor is there reason to suppose Mm
more permanent than Ms predecessors.
208

POWERS AND FORMS OF GOVERNMENTS

There are 7 however, some serious reasons for
doubting whether, in the near future, democracy

is likely to recover the prestige that It had ia the
latter half of the nineteenth century. We have been
saving that, in order to become stable, It must
become traditional. What chance has It of becoming
sufficiently established in Eastern Europe and Asia
to begin die process of becoming traditional?

Government has at all times been greatly affected
by military technique. In the days when Rome was
tending towards democracy, Roman armies were
composed of Roman citizens ; It was the substitution
of professional armies that brought about the Empire*
The strength of the feudal aristocracy depended
upon the impregnability of castles 3 which ended with
the introduction of artillery. The large un-

trained armies of the French Revolution, by defeating
the small professional armies opposed to them 9
showed the importance of popular enthusiasm for the
cause, and thereby suggested the military advantages
of democracy. We seem now, through the aeroplane a
to be returning to the need for forces composed of
comparatively few highly trained men. It is to be
expected, therefore, that the form of government, in
every country exposed to serious war 3 will be such as
aimien will like, which is not likely to be democracy.

But there are certain considerations to be set
against this. It may be assumed that the United
States^ whether a belligerent or not, will be the only
\ictor in the next Great War, and it is improbable
that the United States will cease to be a democracy.
Much of the strength of Fascism is due to its supposed

POWER

advantages in war, and if these prove to be non-
existent democracy may again spread eastward. In
the long run, nothing gives a nation such strength in
war as the wide diffusion of education and patriotism *
and although patriotism may, for the moment, be
stimulated by the revivalist methods of Fascism, such
methods^ as long experience in the religious sphere
has proved, inevitably lead in the end to weariness
and backsliding. On the whole., therefore, the military
arguments point to the survival of democracy where
it still exists and its return to the countries in which
it is for the moment in eclipse. But it must be
admitted that the opposite alternative is by no
means impossible.

CHAPTER XIII

ORGANIZATIONS AND THE INDIVIDUAL

HUMAN beings find it profitable to live in communi-
but their desires^ unlike those of bees in a hive,
remain largely individual ; hence arises the difficulty
of social life and the need of government. For, on
the one haadj government is necessary: without it,
only a very small percentage of the population of
civilized countries could hope to survive, and that
in a state of pitiable destitution. But,, on the other
hand, government involves inequalities of power,
and those who have most power will use it to further
their own desires as opposed to those of ordinary
citizens. Thus anarchy and despotism are alike
disastrous, and some compromise is necessary if
human beings are to be happy.

In the present chapter, I wish to consider die
organizations concerned with a given individual,
not the individuals concerned with a given organiza-
tion. This matter is ? of course, very different in
democratic and in totalitarian Statcs s for in the latter
all the organizations concemed 5 with very few
exceptions, are departments of the State. As far as
possible, however, I wish to ignore this difference
in a preliminary survey.

Organizations, both public and private, affect an
individual in two ways. There are those that are
designed to facilitate the realization of Ms own wishes,
or of what are considered to be Ms interests;

211

POWER

there are intended to prevent him from

thwarting the legitimate interests of others. The
distinction is not dear-cut : the police exist to further
the interests of honest men, as well as to thwart
burglars, but their impact on the lives of burglars
is much more emphatic than their contacts with
those who abide by the law. I shall return to this
distinction presently ; for the moment, let us consider
the most important points 3 in the lives of individuals
in civilized communities^ at which some organization
plays some decisive part.
To besin with birth: the services of a doctor

and, or a midwife are considered essential, and
although, formerly, a wholly untrained Mrs. Gamp
was thought sufficient, a certain level of skill, deter-
mined by a public authority, is now exacted.
Throughout infancy and childhood, health is to
some extent the concern of the State; the extent of
the State's concern in various countries is fairly
accurately reflected in the infant and juvenile death-
rates. If the parents fail too egregiously in their
parental duty, the child can be taken from them by
the public authority, and assigned to the care of
foster-parents or of an institution. At the age of five
or six, the child comes under the education authori-
ties,, and thenceforward, for a number of years, is
compelled to 1 learn those things that the government
thinks every citizen should know. At the end of this
process, in the majority of cases 3 most opinions and
mental habits are fixed for life.

Meanwhile, in democratic countries, the child
comes under other influences which are not exerted

212

ORGANIZATIONS AND THE INDIVIDUAL

by the State. If the parents are religions or political
thev will teach the tenets of a creed or a party. A?

< if

the child STOWS older, he becomes increasingly

'JM^C ^ * *

Interested in organized amusements, such as cinemas
and football matches. If he is rather intelligent, but
not very, he may be influenced by the Press. If he
goes to a school which is not a State school, he
acquires an outlook which is in certain ways peculiar
in England, usuallv an outlook of social superiority

*.? * * A rf

to the herd. Meanwhile he imbibes a moral
which is that of his class and nation. The

moral code is important, but not easy to define^
because precepts are of three not sharply differenti-
ated sorts : firsts those which mast be really obeyed
on pain of general obloquy; secondly, those which

JL \J JL * * * ""

must not be disobeyed; and thirdly,,

which are regarded as counsels of perfection, only
to be obeyed by saints. Moral codes applicable to
the whole population are mainly, though by no
means wholly, the result of religious tradition^
operating through religious organizations, hot capable
of surviving their decay for a longer or shorter time.
There are also professional codes : things which must
not be done by an officer, or a doctor, or a barrister,
and so on. Such codes s in modern times., are usually
formulated by professional associations. They are
very imperative; while the Church and the Array
conflicted as to due!Eng 3 the Army code prevailed
among officers; medical and confessional secrecy
prevails even against the law.

As soon as a young man or woman begins to cam
money, various organizations begin to influence

POWER

Ms or her activities. The employer is usually an

organization ; and there is probably, in addition, a
federation of employers. The trade union and the
State both control important aspects of the work"
and apart from such matters as insurance and
Factory Acts,, the State can help to decide, by tariffs
and by government orders, whether the particular
trade that a man has chosen shall prosper or be
depressed. The prosperity of an industry may be
affected by all kinds of circumstances,, such as
currency, the international situation, or the am-
bitions of Japan.

Marriage and duties to children again bring a man
into relations with the law, and also with a moral
code mainly derived from the Church. If he lives
long enough and is sufficiently poor 3 he may at last
enjoy an old age pension ; and his death is carefully
supervised by the law and the medical profession,
to make sure that it has not occurred by his own wish
or by any one else's.

Certain matters remain to be decided by personal
initiative. A man can marry to please himself, pro-
vided the lady is willing ; lie probably has a certain
liberty of choice, in youth, as to his means of liveli-
hood ; Ms leisure can be spent as he chooses, within
the limits of what he can afford; if he is interested in
religion or politics,, he can join whatever sect or party
most attracts him. Except in the matter of marriage,
lie is still dependent upon organizations even when
he has freedom of choice : he cannot, unless he is a
very exceptional man ? found a religion, create a
party, organize a football club, or make Ms own

914

ORGANIZATIONS AND THE INDIVIDUAL

drinks, What lie can do Is to choose among ready-
made alternatives; but competition tends to
all these alternatives as attractive as possible,
what economic conditions permit.

So far, the effect of the organizations character-
istic of civilized societies is to increase a man's liberty
as compared with (say) a peasant in a comparatively
undeveloped community. Consider the life of a
Chinese peasant^ as compared with that of an
Occidental wage-earner. As a cMld 5 It is true 9 he
not have to go to school , but from a very early
he has to work. He is more likely than not to die in
early childhood, from hardship and lack of medical
care* If he survives, he has no choice as to his means
of livelihood,, unless he is prepared to become a soldier
or a bandit, or to run the risk of migrating to some
large town. Custom deprives him of all but a
minimum of freedom as to marriage. Of leisure he
has practically none^ and if he had it there would
be nothing very pleasant to do with it* He lives always
on the margin of subsistencCj and in times of famine
a large part of Ms family is likely to die of hunger.
And hard as life is for the man, it is far harder for
the wife and daughters. Even the most depressed
of the unemployed, in England^ have a life which is
almost a paradise in comparison with that of the
average Chinese peasant.

To come to another class of organizations, those
designed to prevent a man from doing injury to
others : the most important of these are the police
and the criminal law. In so far as these interfere with
crimes of violence^ such as murder, robbery and

315

POWER

assault^ they increase the freedom and happiness of
all but a small minority of exceptionally ferocious
individuals. Where the police are not in control^

gangs of marauders quickly establish a reign of
terrotj which makes most of the pleasures of civilized
life impossible for all except the gangsters. There is,
of course, a danger ; it is possible for the police them-
selves to become gangsters, or at any rate to establish
some form of tyranny. This danger Is by no means
Imaginary ,, but the methods of coping with it are well
known. There is also die danger that the police
may be used by the holders of power to prevent
or obstruct movements in favour of desirable reforms.
That this should happen to some extent, seems
almost inevitable. It is a part of the fundamental
difficulty that the measures which are necessary to
prevent anarchy are such as make it more difficult to
change the status quo when it ought to be changed.
In spite of this difficulty,, few members of civilized
communities would think it possible to dispense
wholly with the police.

So far 3 we have taken no account of war and
revolution or the fear of them. These involve the
State's instinct of self-preservation, and lead to the
most drastic forms of control over individual lives.
In almost all Continental countries, there is universal
compulsory military service. Everywhere, when war
war breaks out, every male of military age can be
called upon to fight, and every adult can be ordered
to do the work that the government thinks most
conducive to victor?. Those whose activities are

thought helpful to the enemy are liable to the death
216

ORGANIZATIONS AND THE INDIVIDUAL

penalty. In time of peace, all governments

# J. ^ <-w*

steps some more drastically^ others less so to

insure willingness to fight when the moment conies,
and loyalty to the national cause at all times. Govern-
ment action in the matter of revolution varies
according to the degree of likelihood of it. Other
things being equal , the risk of revolution will be
greater where government cares little for the welfare

Q '

of the citizens. But where, as in totalitarian States }
the government lias a monopoly, not only of physical
coercion^ but of moral and economic persuasion,
it can go further In disregard of citizens than is
possible for a less intensive government, since revolu-
tionary sentiment is less easy to propagate and to
organize. It is therefore to be expected that, in so far
as the State is distinct from the body of the citizens.
every increase in its power will make it more
indifferent to their -welfare.

From the above brief survey it seems to result that,
in the main, the effects of organizations, apart from
those resulting from governmental self-preservation,
are such as to increase individual happiness and
well-being. Education 5 health, productivity of labour,
provision against destitution, are matters as to which,
in principlej there should be no dispute; and all of
them depend upon a very high degree of organiza-
tion. But when we come to measures intended to
prevent revolution or defeat in war s the matter is
different. However necessary such measures may
be deemed to be, their effects are unpleasant,
they can only be defended on the ground that
revolution or defeat would be stil more unpleasant*

217

POWER

The difference is perhaps only one of degree. It

may be that vaccination, education, and road-
making are unpleasant, bet less so than smallpox,
Ignorance^ and impassable morasses. The difference
of degree is, however, so great as to amount almost
to a difference in kind. Moreover the unpleasantness
of the measures involved in peaceful progress need
not be more than temporary. Smallpox could be
stamped out, and vaccination would then become
unnecessary. Education and road-making could both
be made fairly agreeable by the employment of
enlightened methods. But every technical advance
makes war more painful and more destructive, and
the prevention of revolution by totalitarian methods
more disastrous to humanity and intelligence.

There is another way of classifying the relations
of an individual to different organizations : he may
be a customer a voluntary member, an involuntary
member 3 or an enemy.

The organizations of which man is a customer
must be thought by Mm to minister to his comforts,
but they do not add much to his feeling of power.
He may, of course, be mistaken in his good opinion
of their services : the pills he buys may be useless,
the beer may be bad s the race-meeting an occasion
for losing money to bookmakers. Nevertheless^ even
in such cases, he gains something from the organiza-
tions that he patronizes: hope 3 amusement, and
the sense of personal initiative. The prospect of
buying a new car gives a man something to think
and talk about. On the whole, freedom of choice
as to how to spend money is a source of pleasure

218

ORGANIZATIONS AND THE INDIVIDUAL

affection for one's own furniture, for example, is a
very strong and very wide-spread emotion, which

would not exist if the State supplied us all with
furnished apartments.

The organizations of which man is a voluntary
member include political parties, ChurcheSj clubs,,
friendly societies, enterprises in which he has
invested money, and so on. Many of these are faced
by enemy organizations belonging to the same cate-
gories: rival political parties., dissident Churches,
competing business enterprises 3 and so on. The
resulting contests give to those who are interested
in them a sense of drama as well as an outlet for
power impulses. Except where the State is weak,
such contests are kept within bounds by the law s
which punishes violence or gross fraud unless it is a
secret accomplice. The battles between opposing;

A i JT O

organizations^ when compelled by the authorities
to be bloodless, afford, on the whole, a useful outlet
for the feelings of pugnacity and love of power wHch
are likely, otherwise, to seek more sinister forms of
satisfaction. There is always the danger, if the State
is lax or not impartial, that political contests may
degenerate into riot, murder, and civil war. But if
this danger is averted they are a wholesome element
in the life of individuals and communities.

The most important organization of which a man
is an involuntary member is the State. The principle
of nationality, so far as it has prevailed^ has 7 however,
led to membership of a State being usually in
accordance with the will of the citizen, though not
due to Ms will.

219

POWER

He m:*ht have been a Russian,
A Frenchman, Turk, or Prussian,
Or perhaps Italian,

A JL *

But in spite of all temptations
To belong to other nations.
He remains an Englishman.

Host people, given the chance to change their
State, would not choose to do so, except when the
State represents an alien nationality. Nothing has
done more to strengthen the State than the success
of the principle of nationality. Where patriotism and
citizenship go hand in hand, a man's loyalty to his
State usually exceeds his loyalty to voluntary organ-
izations such as Churches and parties.

Loyalty to the State has both positive and negative
motives. There is an element which is connected
with love of home and family. But this would not
take the forms which are taken by loyalty to the
State 5 if it were not reinforced by the twin motives
of love of power and fear of foreign aggression. The
contests of States, unlike those of political parties,
are all-in contests. The whole civilized world was
shocked by the kidnapping and murder of the one
Lindbergh baby, but such acts, on a vast scale, are
to be the commonplaces of the next war, for which
we are all preparing, at the cost in Great Britain
of more than a quarter of our income. No other
organization rouses anything like the loyalty aroused
by the national State. And the chief activity of the
State is preparation for large-scale homicide. It
is loyalty to this organization for death that causes
men to endure the totalitarian State, and to risk

ORGANIZATIONS AND THE INDIVIDUAL

the destruction of home and children and our whole
civilization rather than submit to alien rule. Indivi-
dual psychology and governmental organization have
effected a tragic synthesis, from which we and our
children must suffer if we continue powerless to find
an issue except through disaster.

CHAPTER XIV
COMPETITION

THE nineteenth century, which was keenly aware
of the dangers of arbitrary power, had a favourite
device for avoiding them, namely competition. The
evils of monopoly were still familiar from tradition,
The Stuarts, and even Elizabeth, granted profitable
monopolies to courtiers^ the objection to which was
of the causes of the Civil War. In feudal times
it was common for lords of the manor to insist upon
grain being ground in their mills. Continental monar-
chieSj before 1848, abounded in semi-feudal restric-
tions on freedom of competition. These restrictions
were made., not in the interest of either producers or
consumers, but for the benefit of monarchs and
landowners. In eighteenth-century England, on the
contrary, many restrictions survived which were
inconvenient both to landowners and to capitalists
for example, laws as to minimum wages, and pro-
hibition of the enclosure of common lands. In
Englandj therefore, until the Corn Law question,
landowners and capitalists^ on the whole, agreed in
advocating laissez-faire.

All that was most vigorous in Europe was in favour,
alsOj of free competition in matters of opinion. From
1815 to 1848, Church and State 3 over the whole of
the Continent, were united in opposing the ideas of
the French Revolution. The censorship, throughout
Germany and Austria, was at once severe and

222

COMPETITION

ridiculous. Heine made fun of It In a chapter consist-
ing of the following words ;
"The German Censors ...... ..............

idiots /*

In France and Italy, the Napoleonic legend, as
well as admiration of the Revolution, was the object

f jj>

of governmental suppression. In Spain and the States
of the Church, all Hberal thought, even the mildest,

was forbidden ; the Pope's government still officially

bclieved in sorcery. The principle of nationality
was not allowed to be advocated in Italy, Germany,
or Austria-Hungary. And everywhere reaction was
associated with opposition to the interests of com-
merce, with maintenance of feudal rights as against
the rural population, and with the support of foolish
kings and an idle nobility. In these circumstances^
was the natural expression of energies
that were hampered in their legitimate activities.

The freedoms desired by liberals were achieved
in America in the moment of winning independence;
in England, in the period from 1824 to 1846; in
France in 1871 ; in Germany by stages from 1848 to
1918; in Italy in the Bisorgimento ; and even in
Russia, for a moment, in the February Revolution.
But the result was not quite what liberals
intended ; in industry 3 it bore more resemblance to
the hostile prophecies of Marx. America, with the
longest liberal tradition^ was the first to enter the
stage of trusts,, Le., of monopolies not granted by
the State, like those of earlier times, but resulting
from the natural operation of competition. American

223

POWER

liberalism was outraged, but Impotent s and indus-
trial development In other countries gradually
followed the lead given by Rockefeller. It was dis-
covered that competition, unless artificially main-
tained,, brings about Its own extinction by leading
complete victory of some one among the

This, however, Is not true of all forms of competi-
tion. It is true, broadly speaking, where increase
In the size of an organization means Increase of
efficiency. There remain,, therefore, two questions;
first, In what kinds of cases Is competition technically
wasteful? Secondly, in what cases is it desirable on
non- technical grounds?

Technical considerations, broadly speaking, have
led to an Increase in the optimum size of organiza-
tions suitable for dealing with a given matter. In the
seventeenth century, roads were dealt with by
parishes; now, they are controlled by County
Councils largely financed and supervised nationally.
Electricity can be best utilized by an authority
controlling a considerable area, particularly where
there Is some Important source of power, such as
Niagara. Irrigation may demand a work like the
Aswan dam, of which the expense is prohibitive
unless the area controlled is very large. The econ-
omies of large-scale production depend upon control
of a market sufficient to absorb an enormous output
And so on.

There are other directions in which the advantages
of large areas haVe not yet been fully utilized.
Elementary education might be enlivened and

224

COMPETITION

improved by government educational by

lessons broadcast t from the B.B.C. It would be

still better if such Elms and lessons could be prepared
by an international authority, though at present
this is a Utopian dream. Civil aviation is crippled
by not being international. It is obvious that, for
most purposes, large States are better than
ones, and that no State can adequately fulfil the
primarv purpose of protecting the lives of its citizens

'j~ $ JL JL, Ji. ****

unless it is world-wide.

There are 3 however, certain advantages in small

areas. They involve less red tape 5 quicker decisions^

more possibility of adaption to local needs and

customs. The obvious solution is a local government

is not sovereign, but has certain defined

powers, and is controlled, on large issues, by the

central authority, which should also give financial

assistance whenever there is sufficient reason for

doing so. This subject, however, would take us into

questions of detail which I do not wish to discuss.

The question of competition is more difficult It
has been much debated in the economic sphere^ but
its importance is at least as great in regard to armed
force and propaganda. While the Liberal view was
that there should be free competition in business
propaganda s but not in armed force, Italian Fascists
and German Nazis have proclaimed the diametric-
ally opposite opinion, that competition is always
bad except where it takes the form of national war 3
in which case it is the noblest of human activities.
Marxists decry competition except in the form of
the struggle for power between antagonistic

POWER

Plato, so far as I remember, admires only one Mud
of competition, namely emulation for honour among
comrades in arms, which, he t? says, is promoted
by homosexual love.

In the sphere of production, competition between
a multitude of small firms, which characterized the
early phase of industrialism, has given place, in the
most important branches of production, to com-
petition between trusts each coextensive with at
least one State. There is only one important inter-
national tnist 5 namely the armament industry, which
is exceptional in that orders to one firm are a cause
of orders to another : if one country arms, so do
others., and therefore the usual motives for competi-
tion do not exist Apart from this peculiar case,
competition in business still exists, but it is now merged
in the competition between nations, in which war is
the ultimate arbiter of success. The good or evil of
modern business competition, therefore, is the same
as that of rivalry between States.

There is, however, another form of economic
competition which is as fierce as it ever was, I mean
the competition for jobs. This begins with scholarship
examinations at school, and continues throughout
most men's working lives. This form of competition
can be mitigated, but cannot be wholly abolished.
Even if all actors received the same salary, a man
would rather act the part of Hamlet than that of
the First Sailor, There are two conditions to be
observed; first, that the unsuccessful should suffer
no avoidable hardship ; secondly, that success should,
as far as, possible, be the reward of some genuine

COMPETITION

merit, and not of sycophancy or cunning. The

condition has received much, less attention from
Socialists than It deserves. I shall not, however,
pursue this subject, as It would take us too far from
our theme.

The most important form of competition, at the
present day, is between States^ especially those
are called Great Powers, This has become a total-
itarian competition., for power, for wealthy for
control over men's beliefs, but above all for life
itself, since the infliction of the death penalty is the
principal means to victory. It is obvious that the
onlv way of ending this competition is the abolition

rf # * **-^ *

of national sovereignty and national armed forces,
the substitution of a single international govern-
ment with a monopoly of armed force. The alterna-
tive to this measure is the death of a large percentage
of the population of civilized countries, and the
reduction of the remainder to destitution and semi-
barbarism. At present a a vast majority prefer this
alternative.

Competition in propaganda., which Liberals, in
theory, would leave free, has become connected
with the competition between armed State. If
you preach Fascism^ your most important effect is to
strengthen Germany and Italy; if you preach
Communism, you are not likely to bring it about,
but you may help Russia to win the next war; if
you urge the importance of democracy, yon will
find yourself lending support to the policy of a
military alliance with France for the defence of
Czechoslovakia. That Russia, Italy, and Germany

227

POWER

have successively abandoned the principle
of freedom in propaganda, is not surprising, for
the previous adoption of this principle enabled the
present governments of those countries to overthrow
their predecessors, and its continuance would have
made the earning out of their own policy totally
impossible, The world at present is so different from
that of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
that the Liberal arguments for free competition in
propaganda, in so far as they remain valid, need
to be carefully re-stated in modern terms. 1 believe
that they retain a large measure of validity, but that
the} 7 are subject to limitations which it is important
to realize.

The doctrine of Liberals, for example of John
Stuart Mill in his book On Liberty^ was far less ex-
treme than is often supposed. Men were to be free
in so far as their actions did not injure others, but
when others were involved they might a if expedient,
be restrained by the action of the State. A man niight^
say, have been conscientiously convinced that Queen
Victoria ought to be assassinated, but Mill would
not have allowed Mm freedom to propagate this
opinion. This is an extreme case 3 but in fact almost
any opinion worth either advocating or combating
is sure to affect some one adversely. The right of
free speech is nugatory unless it includes the right
to say things that may have unpleasant consequences
to certain individuals or classes. If, therefore^ there
is to be any scope for freedom in propaganda, it
will need for its justification some stronger principle
than Mill's.

COMPETITION

We may look at this question from the point of view

of the government, from that of the average citizen,

that of the ardent innovator, or that of

the philosopher. Let us begin with the point of view

Governments, as we have already remarked, arc
threatened by two dangers: revolution, and defeat
in wax, (In a pariiamentary country, the
opposition Is to be reckoned as part of the govern-
ment). These dangers rouse the Instinct of self-
preservation, and It Is to be expected that govern-
ments will do what they can to avert them. From
this point of view, the question Is : how much freedom
of propaganda will produce the greatest degree of
stability, both against internal and against external
dangers? The answer depends, of course^
the character of the government and the circum-
stances of the time. If the government Is Itself recent
and revolutionary, and the population has strong
reasons for discontent,, freedom is almost sure to
bring further revolution. These circumstances existed
in France in 17933 in Russia in 1918, and in Germany
in 19333 and accordingly in all three cases freedom
of propaganda was destroyed by the government.
But when the government is traditional, and the
economic circumstances of the population are not
too desperate, freedom acts as a safety-valve and
tends to diminish discontent. Although the British
Government has done a good deal to hinder Com-
munist propaganda, that is not the reason for the
failure of Communists in Great Britain, and It would
have been wise, even from a governmental point

POWER

of view, to have allowed absolute freedom to their
propaganda.

I do not think that a government should ever
allow a propaganda urging, say, the assassination
of some particular person. For in this case the action
recommended may take place even if very few men
are converted by the propaganda. It is the duty of
the State to protect its citizens* lives unless they have
legally incurred the death penalty and if there is
an agitation in favour of some one's assassination
it may become very difficult to protect him. The
Weimar Republic was too lax in this respect. But I
do not think that a stable government ought to
prohibit an agitation in favour of making some class
of persons kgaUy liable to the death penalty, for
such an agitation would involve no threat to legality.

There can be no good reason, even from a govern-
mental point of view, for interference with opinions
which do not involve danger to the existence of the
State, If a man holds that the earth is flat, or that
the Sabbath should be observed on Saturday, he
should be free to do Ms best to convert people to his
way of thinking. The State should not regard itself
as the guardian of the Truth in science, metaphysics,
or morals. It has done so at most tunes 3 and does so
at present in Germany, Italy, and Russia. But this
is a confession of weakness, from which stable States
should be exempt.

Coming now to the average citizen, one finds that
he takes very little interest in freedom of propaganda
except in those circumstances in which it seems to
government most dangerous^ namely, when it

230

COMPETITION

threatens the existence of governments. The govern-
ment may differ from its subjects In religion or
nationality ; It may represent the king as against the
the nobles as against the bourgeoisie, or
the bourgeoisie as against the poor; it may
lacking in patriotism, like Charles II and the
German governments after the war. In such situ-
ations, the average citizen may become interested
in an agitation against the government, and will
invoke the principle of free speech when his cham-
pions are imprisoned. But these are pie-revolutionary
situations, and to say that, where they exist, govern-
ments should tolerate adverse propaganda, is to
say, in effect, that they ought to abdicate. This is
often true even from their point of view, since by
abdicating they lose only their power, whereas if
they persist they probably ultimately lose their Jives.
But few governments have had the wisdom to see
this. Nor is it always true when a strong country
oppresses a weak one.

She's the most distressful country

That ever yet was seen,

For they're hanging men and women there

For wearing o s the green.

England was able to pursue this policy towards
Ireland for eight centuries, with, in the end 9 only
some loss of money and a considerable loss of prestige.
During the eight centuries British policy was successful*
since landowners were rich while peasants starved.

Freedom of propaganda, in the cases in wMch
it interests the ordinary citizen* involves either

231

POWER

violent revolution or the recognition of a further

freedom, namely that of choosing the government.
It Is bound up with democracy and the right of
discontented communities to autonomy; in a word,
with the right to achieve peacefully what would
otherwise be achieved by revolution. This is an
important right, and its recognition is very necessary
for the peace of the world ; but it goes far beyond
the right of free propaganda.

It remains to consider the standpoint of the ardent
innovator. We may take as typical the Christian
before Constantine, the Protestant in the time of
Luther 3 and the Communist at the present day.
Such men have seldom been believers in free speech.
They have been willing themselves to suffer martyr-
dom, but have been equally willing to inflict it
History shows that, in the past, determined men
could speak freely in spite of governments. Modem
governments, however, are more efficient, and
will perhaps succeed in making fundamental in-
novation impossible. On the other hand, war may
cause revolution and even anarchy, leading, perhaps 3
to some quite new beginning. On this ground some
Communists look forward with hope to the next war.

The ardent innovator is, as a rule, a millenarian :
lie holds that the millennium will have arrived when
all men embrace Ms creed. Though in the present
lie is revolutionary, in the future he is a conservative :
a perfect State is to be reached, and when reached
is only to be preserved unchanged. Holding these
views, he naturally shrinks from no degree of
violence either in seeking the perfect State or in

232

COMPETITION

preventing Its overthrow: In opposition he is a
terrorist ; In government, a persecutor. His belief in
violence naturally provokes the same belief In Ms
opponents : while they are In power they will perse-
cute Mm, and when they are In opposition they will
plot his assassination. His millennium Is not therefore

altogether pleasant for everybody ; there will be spies,,

arrests by administrative orders, and concentration

camps. But s like Tertullian, he sees no harm In that.

There are. It Is true, mliienarians of a gentler

tvpe. There are those who consider that what Is best
* i

in a man must come from within, and cannot be
Imposed by any external authority; this view Is
exemplified by the Society of Friends. There are
those who hold that external influences may be
Important and beneficial when they take the form
of benevolence and wise persuasion^ but not when
they take the form of prison or execution. Such men
may believe In freedom of propaganda in spite of
being ardent Innovators.

There Is another kind of Innovator, who has only
existed since evolution became fashionable ; of this
kind Sore! In his syndicalist days may be taken as
typical. Such men hold that human life should be a
continual progress, not towards a definable goal,
not in any sense that can be stated precisely
the progress has been madej but of such a sort
each step s when achieved, Is seen to have been an
advance. It Is better to see than not to see, to have
speech than to be without it, and so on; but while
all animals were still b3Ind 5 It was not possible for
them to propose the acquisition of sight as the next

233

POWER

step in reform* Nevertheless, the fact that It was the
next proves, retrospectively, that a static con-
servatism would have been a mistake. All innova-
tions, therefore so it is argued must be encouraged
since one among them, though we cannot know
which, will prove to embody the spirit of evolution.

No doubt there is an element of truth in this view
but it is one that easily develops into a shallow
mysticism of progress, and owing to its vagueness
it cannot be made a basis for practical politics. The
Mstoricaiy important innovators have believed in
taking the kingdom of heaven by storm ; they have
often achieved their kingdom, but it has proved to
be not the kingdom of heaven.

I come now to the standpoint of the philosopher as
regards freedom of propaganda. Gibbon, describing
the tolerant spirit of antiquity, says : "The various
modes of worship, which prevailed in the Roman
world 3 were all considered by the people, as equally
true; by the philosopher, as equally false; and by
the magistrate, as equally useful," The philosopher
whom I have in mind will not go so far as to say that
all prevalent creeds are equally false, but he will not
alow that any is free from falsehood, or that, if by
chance it were, this fortunate fact could be dis-
covered by the faculties of the human mind. To
the imphilosophical propagandist, there is his own
propaganda, which is that of truth, and the opposite
propaganda, which is that of falsehood. If he believes
in permitting both, it is only because he fears that
might be the one to suffer prohibition. To the
osophical spectator, the matter is not so simple,

234

COMPETITION

What, to the philosopher^ can be the uses of propa-
ganda? He cannot say, like the propagandist:
'Tin-factories exist to manufacture pins s and opinion-
factories to manufacture opinions. If the opinions
maaufactured are as lite as two pins, what of that,
provided they are good opinions? And if the large-
scale production rendered possible by monopoly
is cheaper than competing small-scale production*
there is the same reason for monopoly in the one
as in the other. Nay, more : a competing opinion-
factory does not usually, like a competing pin-factory,
manufacture other opinions which may be just as
: it manufactures opinions designed to damage
those of my factory, and therefore immensely in-
crease the work required to keep people supplied
with my produce. Competing factories, therefore,
must be forbidden." TMs, I say, the philosopher
cannot adopt as Ms view. He must contend that
any useful purpose which is to be served by propa-
ganda must be not that of causing an almost certainly
erroneous opinion to be dogmatically believed, but,
on the contrary, that of promoting judgment,
rational doubt, and the power of weighing opposing
considerations; and this purpose it can only serve
if there is competition among propagandas. He will
compare the public to a judge who listens to counsel
on either side^ and will hold that a monopoly in
propaganda is as absurd as if, in a criminal trial,
only the prosecution or only the defence were allowed
to be heard. So far from desiring uniformity of
propaganda, he will advocate that, as far as possible,
everybody should hear all sides of every question.

235

POWER

Instead of different newspapers, each devoted to
the of one party and encouraging the

dogmatism cf its readers^ he will advocate a single
newspaper, in which all parties are represented.

Freedom of debate, of which the intellectual
advantages are obvious,, does not necessarily involve
competing organizations. The B.B.C. allows con-
troversy. Rival scientific theories can all be repre-
sented within the Royal Society. Learned bodies s in
geoeral s do not indulge in corporate propaganda,
but give opportunities to their members severally
to advocate each Ms own theory. Such discussion
within a single organization presupposes a funda-
mental agreement ; no egyptologist wishes to invoke
the military to crush a rival eeyptoloerist whose

/ f w * JL U

theories he dislikes. When a community is in funda-
mental agreement as to its form of government, free

discussion is possible, but where such agreement
does not exist ? propaganda is felt to be a prelude to
the use of force 3 and those who possess force will
naturally aim at a monopoly of propaganda. Free-
dom of propaganda is possible when the differences
are not such as to make peaceable co-operation
under one government impossible. Protestants and
Catholics could not co-operate politically in the
sixteenth century, but in the eighteenth and nine-
teenth they could; hence in the interval religious
toleration became possible. A stable governmental
framework is essential to intellectual freedom; but
imfortunately it may also be the chief engine of
tyranny. The solution of this difficulty depends very
largely upon the form of government.

CHAPTER XV

POWER AND MORAL

MORALITY, at any rate since the days of the Hebrew
oroDhets, has had two divergent aspects. On the

t 4. * *-* -i

one hand, it has been a social Institution analogous

* w

to law; on the other hand, it has been a matter for
the Individual conscience. In the former aspect, it
is part of the apparatus of power ; in the latter a it is
often revolutionary. The kind which is analogous
to law is called "positive" morality; the other kind
may be called "personal" I wish in this chapter to
consider the relations of these two kinds of moraity
to each other and to power.
Positive morality is older than personal morality,
probably older than law and government. It
consists originally of tribal customs, out of which
law gradually develops. Consider the extraordinarily
elaborate rules as to who may marry whom, which
are found among very primitive savages. To us a

seem merely ndes 3 but presumably to those
who accept them they have the same moral compul-
sive force as we feel in our rules against incestuous
unions. Their source is obscure,, but is no doubt in

sense religious. This part of positive morality
appears to have no relation to social inequalities \
it neither confers exceptional power nor assumes its
existence. There are still moral rules of this sort
among civilized people. The Greek Church pro-
hibits the marriage of godparents of the child,

23?

POWER

a prohibition which fulfils no social purpose, either
good or bad 3 but has Its source solely in theology.
It seems probable that many prohibitions which arc
now accepted on rational grounds were originally
superstitious. Murder was objectionable because of
the hostility of the ghost, which was not directed
only against the murderer, but against his com-
munity. The community therefore had an interest in
the matter^ which they could deal with either by
punishment or by ceremonies of purification. Gradu-
ally purification came to have a spiritual significa-
tion, and to be identified with repentance and
absolution; but its original ceremonial character is
still recalled by such phrases as "washed in the
blood of the Lamb.**

This aspect of positive morality, important as it
is, is not the one with which I wish to deal. I wish
to consider those aspects of accepted ethical codes
in which they minister to power. One of the pur-
poses usually in large part unconscious of a
traditional morality is to make the existing social
system work. It achieves this purpose, when It is
successful, both more cheaply and more effectively
than a police force does. But it is liable to be con-
fronted with a revolutionary morality, inspired by
the desire for a redistribution of power. I want, in
tfais chapter, to consider, first, the effect of power
on moral codes, and then the question whether
some other basis can be found for morality.

The most obvious example of power-morality is
the inculcation of obedience. It is (or rather was)
the duty of children to submit to parents, wives to

POWER AND MORAL CODES

husbands^ servants to masters^ subjects to pri,nces 3
and fin religious matters) laymen to priests;
were also more specialized duties of obedience In
armies and religious orders. Each of these duties has
a long history, mnniag parallel with that of the
institution concerned.

Let us begin with filial piety. There are savages
at the present day who, when their parents grow
too old for work, sel them to be eaten. At some stage
in the development of civilization, it must have
occurred to some man of unusual forethought that
lie could, whBe Ms children were still young, produce
in them a state of mind which would lead them to
keep him alive in old age; presumably he was a
man whose own parents were already disposed of.
In creating a party to support Ms subversive opinion,
I doubt whether he appealed merely to motives of
prudence; I suspect that he invoked the Rights of
Man, the advantages of a mainly frugiferous diet,
and the moral blamelessness of the old who have
worn themselves out labouring for their children.
Probably there was at the moment some emaciated
but unusually wise elder, whose advice was felt to be
more valuable than his flesh. However this may be,
it came to be felt that one's parents should be
honoured rather than eaten. To us^ the respect for
fathers in early civilizations seems excessive, but we
have to remember that a very powerful deterrent
was needed to put an end to the lucrative practice
of having them eaten. And so we find the Ten
Commandments suggesting that if you fail to honour
your father and mother you will die young, the

399

POWER

Romans considering parricide the most atrocious of
crimes 3 and Confucius making filial piety the ver?
basis of morality. All this Is a device, however
Instinctive and unconscious, for prolonging parental
power beyond the early years when children are
helpless. The authority of parents has of course been
reinforced by their possession of property, but if
filial piety had not existed young men would
not have allowed their fathers to retain control
of their flocks and herds after they had become
feeble.

The same sort of thing happened in regard to
the subjection of women. The superior strength of
male animals does not, in most cases, lead to con-
tinual subjection of the females, because the males
have not a sufficient constancy of purpose. Among
human beings., the subjection of women, is much
more complete at a certain level of civilization than
It Is among savages. And the subjection Is always
reinforced by morality. A man, says St. Paul, "is
the image and glory of God : but the woman is the
glory of the man. For the man is not of the woman;
but the woman of the man. Neither was the man
created for the woman; but the woman for the
man" (i Corinthians xi. 7-9), It follows that wives
ought to obey their husbands, and that unfaithful-
ness is a worse sin in a wife than in a husband.
Christianity, it is true, holds, in theory, that adultery
is equally sinful in either sex, since it is a sin against
God. But this view has not prevailed in practice,
and was not held even theoretically in pre-Christian
times. Adultery with a married woman was wicked,

240

POWER AND MORAL CODES

because it was an offence against her husband; but
female slaves and war-captives were the legitimate

* (w^"

property of their master, and no blame attached to

g A rf

intercourse with them. This view was held bv pious

* A

Christian slave-owners, though not by their wives,
even in nineteenth-century America,
The basis of the difference between morality for

men and morality for women was obviously the

superior power of men. Originally the superiority
was only physical, but from this basis it gradually
extended to economics, politics^ and religion. The
great advantage of morality over the police appears
very clearly in this case, for women, until quite
recently, genuinely believed the moral precepts which
embodied male dominations and therefore required
much less compulsion than would otherwise have
been necessary.

The code of Hammurabi gives an interesting
illustration of the unimportance of women in the
eyes of the legislator. If a man strikes the daughter
of a gentleman when she is pregnant, and she dies
in consequence, it is decreed that the daughter of
the striker shall be put to death. As between the
gentleman and the striker, this is just ; the daughter
who is executed is merely a possession of the latter,
and has no claim to life on her own account. And
in killing the gentleman's daughter the striker is
guilty of an offence^ not against her, but against the
gentleman. The daughters had no rights because
they had no power.

KlngSy until George I 5 were objects of
veneration.

POWER

There's such divinity doth hedge a Mng 3
That treason can but peep the thing it would,
Acts little of his will.

The word "treason/ 3 even in republics, has still a
flavour of impiety. In England, government profits
much by the tradition of royalty. Victorian states-
men, even Mr. Gladstone, felt it their duty to the
Queen to see to it that she was never left without a
Prime Minister. The duty of obedience to authority
is still felt by many as a duty towards the sovereign.
This is a decaying sentiment, but as it decays
government becomes less stable, and dictatorships
of the Right or the Left become more possible.

Bagehot's English Constitution a book still well
worth reading begins the discussion of the monarchy
as follows :

The use of the Queen, in a dignified capacity, is
incalculable. Without her in England, the present Eng-
lish Government would fail and pass away. Most people
when they read that the Queen walked on the slopes at
Windsor that the Prince of Wales went to the Derby
have imagined that too much thought and prominence
were given to little things. But they have been in error;
and it is nice to trace how the actions of a retired widow
and an unemployed youth become of such importance*

The best reason why Monarchy is a strong government
is, that it is an intelligible government. The mass of
mankind understand it, and they hardly anywhere in
the world understand any other. It is often said that
men are ruled by their imaginations; but it would be
truer to say that they are governed by the weakness of
their imaginations*

POWER AND MORAL CODES

This is both true and important. Monarchy
social cohesion easy, first, because it is not so difficult
to fee! loyalty to an individual as to an abstraction,,
and secondly, because kingsMp s in its long history,
has accumulated sentiments of veneration which
no new institution can inspire. Where hereditary
monarchy has been abolished^ it has usually been
succeeded, after a longer or short time, by some
other form of one-man rule : tyranny in Greece s the
Empire in Rome, Cromwell in England 3 the Napo-
leons in France, Stalin and Hitler in our own day
Such men inherit a part of the feelings formerly
attached to royalty. It is amusing to note, in the
confessions of the accused in Russian trials, the
acceptance of a morality of submission to the ruler
such as would be appropriate in the most ancient
and traditional of absolute monarchies. But a new
dictator^ unless he is a very extraordinary man, can
hardly inspire quite the same religious veneration as
hereditary monarchs enjoyed in the past.

In the case of Mngship, the religious element, as
we have seen, has often been carried so far as to
interfere with power. Even then, however, it has
helped to give stability to the social system of which
the king is a symbol. This has happened in many
semi-civilized countries, in Japan, and in England*
In England, the doctrine that the king can do no
wrong has been osed as a weapon for depriving Mm
of power, but it has enabled his Ministers to have
more power than they would have if he did not
exist. Wherever there is a traditional monarchy,
rebellion against the government is an offence against

243

POWER

the king, and Is regarded by the orthodox as a
and an impiety. Kingship acts therefore, broadly
speaking, as a force on the side of the status qu$
whatever that may be. Its most useful function
historically, has been the creation of a widely diffused
sentiment favourable to social cohesion. Men are
so little gregarious by nature that anarchy is a
constant danger, which kingship has done much to
prevent. Against this merit, however, must be set
the demerit of perpetuating ancient evils and in-
creasing the forces opposed to desirable change.
This demerit has, in modem times, caused monarchy
to disappear over the greater part of the earth's
surface.

The power of priests is more obviously connected
with morals than any other form of power. IE
Christian countries, virtue consists in obedience to
the will of God, and it is priests who know what the
will of God commands. The precept that we ought
to obey God rather than man is, as we saw, capable
of being revolutionary; it is so in two sets of circum-
stances, one, when the State is in opposition to the
Church, the other, when it is held that God speaks
directly to each individual conscience. The former
state of affairs existed before Constantine, the latter
among the Anabaptists and Independents. But in
non-revolutionary periods, when there is an estab-
lished and traditional Church, it is accepted by
positive morality as the intermediary between God
and the individual conscience. So long as this
acceptance continues, its power is very great, and
rebellion against the Church is thought more wicked

244

POWER AND MORAL CODES

any other kind. The Church has Its difficulties
none the Iess 3 for if It uses Its power too flagrantly

* w

men begin to doubt whether It Is Interpreting the
will of God correctly ; and when this doubt becomes
common^ the whole ecclesiastical edifice crumbles.,
as It did in Teutonic countries at the Reformation.

In the case of the Church, the relation between
power and morals Is, to some extent^ the opposite
of what It is In the cases we have hitherto considered.
Positive morality enjoins submission to parents, hus-
bands, and kings, because they are powerful; but
the Church Is powerful because of Its moral authority.
This 3 however,, Is only true up to a point. Where
the Church is secure., a morality of submission to
the Church grows up, just as a morality of submission
to parents, husbands, and kings has grown up. And
a revolutionary rejection of this morality of sub-
mission also grows up In the same way. Heresy and
schism are specially abhorrent to the Church, and
are therefore essential elements in revolutionary
programmes. There are, however, more complicated
results of opposition to priestly power. The Church
being the official guardian of the moral code, Its
opponents are likely to revolt In morals as well as
In doctrine and government. They may revolt, like
the Puritans, into greater strictness^ or, like the
French Revolutionaries, Into greater laxity; but in
either case morals come to be a private matter, not ?
as before, the subject of official decisions by a public
body.

It must not be supposed that personal morality
Is in general worse than official priestly morality*

POWER

even when it is less severe. There is some evidence
than when, in the sixth century B.C., Greek senti-
ment was becoming strongly averse from human
sacrifice, the oracle at Delphi tried to retard this
humanitarian reform, and to keep alive the old
rigid practices. Similarly in our own day, when the
State and public opinion consider it permissible to
many one's deceased wife's sister, the Church, in so
far as it has power, maintains the old prohibition.
Morality, where the Church has lost power, has
not become genuinely personal except for a few
exceptional people. For the majority, it is repre-
sented by public opinion, both that of neighbours
in general, and that of powerful groups such as
employers. From the point of view of the sinner, the
change may be slight, and may also be for the worse.
Where the individual gains is not as sinner, but as
judge : he becomes part of an informal democratic
tribunal, whereas, where the Church is strong, he
must accept the rulings of Authority. The Protestant
whose moral feelings are strong usurps the ethical
functions of the priest,, and acquires a quasi-
governmental attitude towards other people's virtues
and vices s especially the latter :

YeVe naught to do but mark and tell
Your neighbours* faults and folly. *

This is not anarchy ; it is democracy.

The thesis that the moral code is an expression
of power is, as we have seen, not wholly true. From
the exogamous roles of savages onward, there are,
at all stages of civilization, ethical principles which

346

POWER AND MORAL CODES

have HO visible relation to power among ourselves,
the condemnation of homosexuality may serve as
an example. The Marxist thesis, that the moral code
is an expression of economic power, is even less ade-
quate than the thesis that it Is an expression of
power in general. Nevertheless, the Marxist thesis
is true in a very great many instances. For example :
in the Middle Ages, when the most powerful of the
laity were landowners, when bishoprics and monastic
orders derived their income from land s and when
the only investors of money were Jews, the Church
unhesitatingly condemned "usury/* i.e. all lending
of money at interest. This was a debtors morality.
With the rise of the rich merchant class, it became
impossible to maintain the old prohibition: it was
relaxed first by Calvin, whose clientele was mainly
urban and prosperous, then fay the other Protes-
tants, and last of all ty the Catholic Church. 1
Creditor's morality became the fashion 5 and non-
payment of debts a heinous sin. The Society of
Friends, practically if not theoretically, excluded
bankrupts until very recently.

The moral code towards enemies is a matter as
to which different ages have differed greatly, largely
because the profitable uses of power have differed.
On this subject, let us first hear the Old Testament

When the Lord thy God shall bring thce into the
land whither thou goest to possess it, and hath cast out
many nations before thee, the Hittites, and the Gir-

1 On this subject, c Tawney, aid &g Rm &f

Cefnialum*

24?

POWER

gashites, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and
Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites,
nations greater and mightier than thou;

And when the Lord thy God shall deliver them before
thee; thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them-
thou shalt male no covenant with them, nor show mercy
unto them ;

Neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy
daughter shalt thou not give unto his son, nor hk
daughter shalt thou take unto thy son.

For they will turn away thy son from following me,
that they may serve other gods: so will the anger of
the Lord be kindled against you, and destroy thee
suddenly.

If tiaev do all this, "there shall not be male or

* *

female barren among you 5 or among your cattle. >51
As regards these seven nations, we are told in a
later chapter even more explicitly :

Thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth . . .
that they teach you not to do after all their abomina-
tions (xx. 1 6, 1 8).

But towards "cities which are very far off from

thee, and which are not of these nations'* it is
permissible to be more merciful :

Thou shall smite every male thereof with the edge of
the sword: but the women, and the little ones, and the
cattle, and all that Is in the city, even all the spoil
thereof., shalt thou take unto thyself (ibid,, 13-15).

It will be remembered that when Saul smote the
AmaleMtes he got into trouble for being insufficiently

thorough :

1 Deuteronomy vii. 1-4 and 14.

POWER AND MORAL CODES

And he took Agag the king of the Amalekites alive,

and utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of
the sword.

But Saul and the people spared Agag, and the
of the sheep, and of the oxen, and of the fatlingSj and
the lainbSj and all that was good, and would not utterly
destroy them : but everything that was vile aad refuse,
that they destroyed utterly.

Then came the word of the Lord unto Samuel, saying,
It repenteth me that I have set up Saul to be king;
for he is turned back from following me 3 and hath not
performed my commandments, 1

It is obvious in these passages that the interests
of the children of Israel were to prevail completely
when they came into conflict with those of the
Gentiles, but that internally the interests of religion^
I.e. of the priests, were to prevail over the economic
interests of the laity. The word of the Lord came
unto Samuel, but it was the word of Samuel that
came unto Saul 5 and the word was : "What meaneth
then this bleating of sheep in mine ears, and the
lowing of oxen which I hear? 59 To which Saul could
only reply by confessing his sin.

The JewSj from their horror of idolatry of which
the microbes apparently lurked even in sheep and
cows were led to exceptional thoroughness in the
extermination of the vanquished. But no nation of
antiquity recognized any legal or moral Emits to
what might be done with defeated populations. It
was customary to exterminate some and sell the
rest into slavery. Some Greeks for instance, Euri-

1 i Samuel xv. 8-1 1.

POWER

pities in the Trojan Women tried to create a senti-
ment against this practice, but without success. The
vanquished, having no power, had no claim to
mercy. This view was not abandoned, even in theow
until the coming of Christianity.

Duty to enemies is a difficult conception. Clemency
was recognized as a virtue in antiquity, but only
when it was successful, that is to say, when it turned
enemies into friends; otherwise, it was condemned
as a weakness. When fear had been aroused, no one
expected magnanimity: the Romans showed noae
towards Hannibal or the followers of Spartacus. IE
the days of chivalry, a knight was expected to show
courtesy to a knightly captive. But the conflicts of
knights were not very serious ; not the faintest mercy
was shown to the Albigenses. In our day, almost
equal ferocity has been shown towards the victims
of the white terrors in Finland, Hungary, Germany,
and Spain, and hardly any protests have been
aroused except among political opponents. The
terror in Russia, likewise, has been condoned by
most of the Left, Now, as in the days of the Old
Testament, no duty to enemies is acknowledged in
practice when they are sufficiently formidable to
arouse fear. Positive morality, in effect, is still only
operative within the social group concerned, and is
therefore still, in effect, a department of government
Nothing short of a world government will cause
people of pugnacious disposition to admit, except
as a counsel of perfection, that moral obligations
are not confined to a section of the human race.

I have been concerned hitherto, in this chapter,

250

POWER AND MORAL CODES

\vith positive morality, and 3 as has become evident,
it is not enough. Broadly speaking, it is on the side
of the powers that be, it does not allow a place for
revolution, it does nothing to mitigate the fierceness
of strife, and it can find no place for the prophet
who proclaims some new moral insight. Certain
difficult questions of theory are involved, but before
considering them let us remind ourselves of some
of the things that only opposition to positive morality
could achieve.

The world owes something to the Gospels 3 though
not so much as it would if they had had more
influence. It owes something to those who denounced
slavery and the subjection of women. We may hope
that in time it will owe something to those who
denounce war and economic injustice. In the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, it owed much
to the apostles of tolerance; perhaps it will again
in some happier age than ours. Revolutions s against
the mediaeval Church, the Renaissance monarchies,
and the present power of plutocracy, are necessary
for the avoidance of stagnation. Admitting^ as we
must, that mankind needs revolution and individual
morality s the problem is to find a place for these
things without plunging the world into anarchy.

There are two questions to be considered: First,
what is the wisest attitude for positive morality^
from its own standpoint, to take to personal morality?
Second, what degree of respect does personal morality
owe to positive morality? But before discussing cither
of these^ something must be said as to what is meant
by pereonal morality.

951

POWER

Personal morality may be considered as a historical
phenomenon, or from the standpoint of the phflo-
sopher. Let us begin with the former,

Almost every individual that has ever existed, so
far as history is aware, has had a profound horror
of certain kinds of acts. As a rule, these acts are
in abhorrence, not only by one individual, but by a
whole tribe or nation or sect or class. Sometimes
the origin of the abhorrence is unknown, sometimes
it can be traced to a historical personage who was
a moral innovator. We know why Mohammedans
will not make images of animals or human beings;
it is because the Prophet forbade them to do so. We
know why orthodox Jews will not eat hare; it is
because the Mosaic Law declares that the hare is
unclean. Such prohibitions, when accepted., belong
to positive morality; but in their origin, at any rate
when their origin is known, they belonged to private
morality.

Morality, for us, however, has come to mean
something more than ritual precepts, whether posi-
tive or negative. In the form in which it "is familiar
to us it is not primitive, but appears to have a
number of independent sources Chinese sage,
Indian Buddhists, Hebrew prophets, and Greek
philosophers. These men, whose importance in his-
tory it is difficult to overestimate, all lived within
a few centuries of each other, and all shared certain
characteristics which marked them out from their
predecessors. Lao-Tse and Chuang-Tse deliver the
doctrine of the Tao as what they know of their own
knowledge, not through tradition or the wisdom of

POWER AND MORAL CODES

others; and the doctrine consists not of specific
duties^ but of a way of life, a manner of thinking

and feeling^ from which it will become plain, without
the need of rules, what must be done on each
occasion. The same may be said of the early Bud-
dhists. The Hebrew prophets, at their best, transcend
the Law, and advocate a new and more inward
kind of virtue, recommended not by tradition^ but
bv the words is thus saith the Lord." Socrates acts
as his daemon commands., not as the legally consti- "
rated authorities desire; he is prepared to suffer
martyrdom rather than be untrue to the inner
voice. All these men were rebels in their day, and
all have come to be honoured. Something of what
was new in them has come to be taken as a matter
of course. But it is not altogether easy to say what
this something is.

The minimum that must be accepted by any
thoughtful person who either adheres to a religion
having a historical origin, or thinks that some such
religion was an improvement on what went before^
is this : that a way of life which was in some sense
better than some previous way of life was first
advocated by some individual or set of individuals,,
in opposition to the teaching of State and Church
in their day. It follows that it cannot always be
wrong for an individual to set himself up in moral
questions, even against the judgment of all mankind
up to his day. In science, every one now admits the
corresponding doctrine; but in science the ways of
testing a new doctrine are known, and it soon comes
to be generally accepted, or else rejected on other

253

POWER

grounds than tradition. In ethics, no such obvious
ways exist by which a new doctrine can be tested,
A prophet may preface his teaching by "thus saitk
the Lord," which is sufficient for him; but how arc
other people to know that he has had a genuine
revelation? Deuteronomy, oddly enough, proposes
the same test as is often held to be conclusive in
science, namely success in prediction: "And if thou
say in thine heart. How shall we know the word
which the Lord hath not spoken? When a prophet
speaketh in the name of the Lord, if the tiling
follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing
which the Lord hath not spoken, but the prophet
hath spoken it presumptuously." 1 But the modem
mind can hardly accept this test of an ethical

doctrine.
We must face the question : What is meant by an

ethical doctrine, and in what ways, if any, can it be

tested?

Historically, ethics is connected with religion. For
most men, authority has sufficed : what is laid down
as right or wrong by the Bible or the Church is
right or wrong. But certain individuals have, from
time to time, been divinely inspired: they have
known what was right or wrong because God spoke
directly to them. These individuals, according to
orthodox opinion, all lived a long time ago, and
if a modern man professes to be one of them it is
best to put him in an asylum, unless, indeed, the
Church sanctions his pronouncements. This, how-
ever, is merely the usual situation of the rebel

2 Deuteronomy xviii. 2J 5 22,

254

POWER AND MORAL CODES

jbecome dictator, and does not help us to decide
what are the legitimate functions of rebels.

Can we translate ethics into non-theological
terms? Victorian freethinkers had no doubt that
this was possible. The utilitarians, for instance, were
highly moral men, and were convinced that their
morality had a rational basis. The matter is, how-
ever, rather more difficult than it appeared to
them.

Let us consider a question suggested by the
mention of the utilitarians, namely : Can a rule of
conduct ever be a self-subsistent proposition of ethics*
or must it always be deduced from the good or bad
effects of the conduct in question? The traditional
view is that certain kinds of acts are sinful, and
certain others virtuous, independently of their effects.
Other kinds of acts are ethically neutral, and may
be judged by their results. Whether euthanasia or
marriage with a deceased wife's sister should be
legalized is an ethical question, but the gold standard
is not There are two definitions of "ethical" ques-
tions, either of which will cover the cases to which
this adjective is applied. A question is "ethical"
(i) if it interested the ancient Hebrews, (2) if it is
one on which the Archbishop of Canterbury is the
official expert. It is obvious that this common use
of the word "ethical" is wholly indefensible.

Nevertheless, I find, speaking personally, that
there are kinds of conduct against wMch I fed a
repugnance which seems to me to be moral, but to
be not obviously based upon an estimate of conse-
quences. I am informed by many people that the

255

POWER

preservation of democracy, which I think impor-
tant, can only be secured by gassing immense num.
bers of children and doing a .number of other
horrible things. I find that, at this point, I cannot
acquiesce in the use of such means, I tell myself that
they will not secure the end, or that, if they do, they
will incidentally have other effects so evil as to
outweigh any good that democracy might do. I am
not quite sure how far this argument is honest; 1
think I should refuse to use such means even if I
were persuaded that they would secure the end and
that no others would. Per contra, psychological
imagination assures me that nothing that I should
think good can possibly be achieved by such means.
On the whole, I think that, speaking philosophically,
all acts ought to be judged by their effects ; but as
this is difficult and uncertain and takes time, it is
desirable, in practice, that some kinds of acts should
be condemned and others praised without waiting
to investigate consequences. I should say, therefore,
with the utilitarians 3 that the right act, in any given
circumstances, is that which, on the data, will
probably produce the greatest balance of good over
evil of all the acts that are possible ; but that the
performance of such acts may be promoted by the
existence of a moral code.

Accepting this view, ethics is reduced to defining
"good" and "bad," not as means, but as ends in
themselves. The utilitarian says that the good is
pleasure and the bad is pain. But if some one
disagrees with him, what arguments can he produce?

Consider various views as to the ends of life. One

POWER AND MORAL CODES

man says "the good is pleasure 33 ; another, "the
is pleasure for Aryans and pain for Jews" ;
another, "the good is to praise God and glorify Him
for ever." \\Tiat are these three men asserting^ and
what methods exist by which they can convince
each other? They cannot, as men of science do,
appeal to facts : no facts are relevant to the dispute.
Their difference is in the realm of desire, not in the
realm of statements about matters of fact I do not
assert that when I say "this is good" I mean "1
desire this 39 ; it is only a particular kind of desire
leads me to call a thing good. The desire must
be in some degree impersonal; it must have to do
with the sort of world that would content me, not
only with my personal circumstance. A long might
say: "Monarchy is good, and I am glad I am a
monarch." The first part of this statement is indubi-
tably ethical^ but his pleasure in being a monarch
only becomes ethical if a survey persuades Mm that
no one else would make such a good king.

1 have suggested on a former occasion (in
ml that a judgment of intrinsic value is to

be interpreted 3 not as an assertion, but as an expres-
sion of desire concerning the desires of mankind.
When I say "hatred is bad,** I am really saying:
"Would that no one felt hatred." I make no asser-
tion; I merely express a certain, type of wish. The
hearer can gather that I feel this wish, but that is
the ontyfact that he can gather^ and that is a fact
of psychology. There are no facts of ethics.

The great ethical innovators have not been men
who more than others; they have been men

a 257

POWER

who desired more, or, to be more accurate 5 men whose
desires were more impersonal and of larger scop
than those of average men. Most men desire their
own happiness ; a considerable percentage desire the
happiness of their children; not a few desire the
happiness of their nation; some, genuinely and
strongly, desire the happiness of all mankind. These
men, seeing that many others have no such feeling,
and that this is an obstacle to universal felicity,
wish that others felt as they do ; this wish can be
expressed in the words "happiness is good. 31

AH great moralists, from Buddha and the Stoics
down to recent times, treated the good as something
to be, if possible, enjoyed by all men equally. They
did not think of themselves as princes or Jews or
Greeks; they thought of themselves merely as human
beings. Their ethic had always a twofold source;
on the one hand, they valued certain elements k
their own lives ; on the other hand, sympathy made
them desire for others what they desired for them-
selves. Sympathy is the universalizing force in ethics ;
I mean sympathy as an emotion, not as a theoretical
principle. Sympathy is in some degree instinctive;
a child may be made unhappy by another child's
cry. But limitations qf sympathy are also natural.
The cat has no sympathy for the mouse ; the Romans
had no sympathy for any animals except elephants;
the Nazis have none for Jews, and Stalin had none
for kulaks. Where there is limitation of sympathy
there is a corresponding limitation in the conception
of the good: the good becomes something to be
enjoyed only by the magnanimous man, or only by
258

POWER AND MORAL CODES

the superman, or the Aryan, or the proletarian or
the Ckristadelphian. Ail these are cat-and-mouse
ethics.

The refutation of a cat-and-mouse ethic, where it
is possible, is practical, not theoretical. Two adepts
at such an ethlc 5 Eke quarrelsome little boys, each
begin: "Let's play I'm the cat and you're the
mouse. 55 "Xo 3 no/ 5 they each retort, "you shan't
be the cat, I will." And so, more often than not,
they become the Kilkenny cats. But if one of them
succeeds completely, he may establish Ms ethic; we
get Kipling and the White Man's Burden, or
tie Nordic Race, or some such creed of inequality.
Such creeds, inevitably, appeal only to the cat, not
to the mouse; they are imposed on the mouse by
naked power.

Ethical controversies are very often as to means,
not ends. Slavery may be attacked by the argument
that it is uneconomic; the subjection of women may
be criticized by maintaining that the conversation
of free women is more interesting; persecution may
be deplored on the ground (wholly fallacious,
incidentally) that the religious convictions produced
by it are not genuine. Behind such arguments, how-
ever, there is generally a difference as to ends.
Sometimes^ as in Nietzsche's criticism of Christianity,
the difference of ends becomes nakedly apparent*
In Christian ethics, all men count alike; for Niet-
zsche, the majority are only a means to the hero.
Controversies as to ends cannot be conducted, like
scientific controversies, by appeals to facts; they
must be conducted by an attempt to change men* s

POWER

feelings. The Christian may endeavour to rouse
sympathy, the Tvietzschean may stimulate pride.
Economic and military power may reinforce propa-
ganda. The contest is, in short, an ordinary contest
for power. Any creed, even one which teaches
universal equality, may be a means to the domination
of a section ; this happened, for instance, when the
French Revolution set to work to spread democracy
by force of arms.

Power is the means, in ethical contests as in those
of politics. But with the ethical systems that have
had most influence in the past, power is not the end.
Although men hate one another, exploit one another,
and torture one another, they have, until recently
given their reverence to those who preached a
different way of life. The great religions that aimed
at universality, replacing the tribal and national
cults of earlier times, considered men as men, not
as Jew or Gentile, bond or free. Their founders wot
men whose sympathy was universal, and who were
felt, on this account, to be possessed of a wisdom
surpassing that of temporary and passionate despots.
The result was not all that the founders could have
wished. At an aut&-da-/e 9 the mob had to be prevented
by the police from attacking the victims, and was
furious if one whom it had hoped to see burnt alive
succeeded, by a tardy recantation, in winning the
privilege of being strangled first and burnt after-
wards. Nevertheless, the principle of universal sym-
pathy conquered first one province, then another.
It is the analogue, in the realm of feeling, o
impersonal curiosity in the realm of intellect; both

260

POWER AND MORAL CODES

are essential elements in mental growth. I do
not that the return to a tribal or aristocratic

etMc can be of long duration; the whole history
of man since ^ the time of Buddha points in the
opposite direction. However passionately power may
be desired, it is not power that is thought good in
moments of reflective meditation. This is proved by
the characters of the men whom mankind have
thought most nearly divine.

The traditional moral rules that we considered at
the beginning of this chapter filial piety, wifely
submission, loyalty to kings, and so on have all
decayed completely or partially. They may be suc-
ceeded, as in the Renaissance, by an absence of moral
restraint, or, as in the Reformation, by a new code
in many ways more strict than those that have
become obsolete. Loyalty to the State plays a much
larger part in positive morality in our time than it
did formerly; this, of course, is the natural result of
the increase in the power of the State. The parts
of morals that are concerned with other groups,
such as the family and the Church, have less control
than they used to have ; but I do not see any evidence
that, on the balance, moral principles or moral
sentiments have less influence over men's actions
now than in the eighteenth century or the

j%i .*_ ,riik

Let us end this chapter with a summary analysis.
The moral codes of primitive societies are generally

^ O *****"** n -*-j

oelievecl, in those societies^ to have a supernatural
origin ; in part, we can see no reason for this
but to a considerable extent it represents the

281

POWER

of power in the community concerned: the
consider submission to the powerful a duty, but the
powerful must not be so ruthless as to rouse rebellion*
Under the influence of prophets and sages, however^
a new morality arises, sometimes side by side with
the old one, sometimes in place of it. Prophets
and sages, with few exceptions, have valued things
other than power wisdom, justice, or universal
love, for example and have persuaded large sections
of mankind that these are aims more worthy to be
pursued than personal success. Those who suffer by
some part of the social system which the prophet
or sage wishes to alter have personal reasons for
supporting his opinion; it is the union of their self-
seeking with his impersonal ethic that makes the
resulting revolutionary movement irresistible.

We can now arrive at some conclusion as to the

place of rebellion in social life. Rebellion is of two

sorts; it may be purely personal, or it may be

inspired by desire for a different kind of community

from that in which the rebel finds himself. In the

latter case, his desire can be shared by others; in

many instances, it has been shared by all except a

small minority who profited by the existing system.

This type of rebel is constructive, not anarchic;

even if his movement leads to temporary anarchy,

It is intended to give rise, in the end, to a new stable

community. It is the impersonal character of his

aims that distinguishes him from the anarchic rebel

Only the event can decide, for the general public,

whether a rebellion will come to be thought justified;

when it is thought to have been justified, previously

afa

POWER AND MORAL CODES

easting authority would have been wise, from its
own point of view, in not offering a desperate
resistance. An individual may perceive a way of Hfe 5
or a method of social organization, by which more
of the desires of mankind could be satisfied than
under the existing method. If he perceives truly, and
can persuade men to adopt his refomi 5 he is justified.
Without rebellion, mankind would stagnate, and
injustice would be irremediable. The man who
refeses to obey authority has, therefore, in certain
circumstances, a legitimate function, provided his
disobedience has motives which are social rather
than personal. But the matter is one as to which,
by its very nature^ it is impossible to lay down rules.

CHAPTER XVI

POWER PHILOSOPHIES

MY purpose, in this chapter, is to consider certain
philosophies which are inspired mainly by love of
power. I do not mean that power is their subject-
matter, but that it is the philosopher's conscious
or unconscious motive in his metaphysics and in
Ms ethical judgments.

Our beliefs result from the combination, in varying
degrees, of desire with observation. In some 3 the
part of the one factor is very slight; in others, that
of the other. What can be strictly established by
empirical evidence is very little, and when our
beliefs go beyond this, desire plays a part in their
genesis. On the other hand, few beliefs long survive
definite conclusive evidence of their falsity, though
they may survive for many ages when there is no
evidence either for or against them.

Philosophies are more unified than life. In life,
we have many desires, but a philosophy is usually
inspired by some one dominant desire which gives it
coherence.

Zu fragmentarisch ist Welt und Leben.

Ich will mich zum deutschen Professor begeben,

Der weiss das Leben zusammenzusetzen,
Und er macht ein verstandig System daraus. 1

1 Hie world and life are too fragmentary. I will betake
mysdf to the German Professor ; he knows how to synthesize
life and he makes an intelligible system out of it.

POWER PHILOSOPHIES

Various desires have dominated the work of
philosophers. There is the desire to know, and what
is by no means the same thing, the desire to prove
that the world is knowable. There is the desire for
happiness, the desire for virtue, and a synthesis
of these two the desire for salvation. There is the
desire for the sense of union with God or with other
human beings. There is the desire for beauty, the
desire for enjoyment, and finally^ the desire for

power.

The great religions aim at virtue, but usuaEy also
at something more. Christianity and Buddhism seek
salvation,, and, in their more mystical forms, union
with God or with the universe. Empirical philoso-
phies seek truth, while idealist philosophies, from
Descartes to Kant^ seek certainty; practically all
the great philosophers, down to Kant {inclusive},
are concerned mainly with desires belonging to the
cognitive part of human nature. The philosophy of
Bentham and the Manchester School considers
pleasure the end, and wealth the principal means.
The power philosophies of modem times have
arisen largely as a reaction against "Manchester-
ismus," and as a protest against the view that the
purpose of life is a series of pleasures an aim wMcfa.
is condemned as both too fragmentary and insuffi-
ciently active.

Human life being a perpetual interaction between
volition and uncontrollable facts* the philosopher
who is guided by his power impulses seeks to mini-
mize or decry the part played by facts that are not
the result of our own will. I am thinking BOW not

POWER

merely of men who glorify naked power,
Machiavelli and Thrasymachus in the Republic* I
am thinking of men who invent theories which veil
their own love of power beneath a garment of
metaphysics or ethics. The first of such philosophers
in modern times 3 and also the most thorough-going
is Fichte.

The philosophy of Fichte starts from the ego, as
the sole existent in the world. The ego exists because
it posits itself. Although nothing else exists, the
ego one day gets a little knock (ein Kleiner Anstoss),
as a result of which it posits the non-ego. It then
proceeds to various emanations, not unlike those of
Gnostic Theology ; but whereas the Gnostics attri-
buted the emanations to God, and thought humbly
of themselves, Fichte considers the distinction
between God and the ego unnecessary. When the
ego has done with metaphysics, it proceeds to posit
that the Germans are good and the French are bad,
and that it is therefore the duty of the Germans to
fight Napoleon. Both the Germans and the French, of
course, are only emanations of Fichte, but the Ger-
mans are a higher emanation, that is to say, they
are nearer to the one ultimate reality, which is
Fichte's ego. Alexander and Augustus asserted that
they were gods, and compelled others to pretend
agreement; Fichte, not being in control of the
government^ lost his job on a charge of atheism,
since he could not well proclaim his own divinity.

It is obvious that a metaphysic such as Fichte's
leaves no place for social duties, since the outer world
is merely a product of my dream. The only imagm-

266

POWER PHILOSOPHIES

able etMc compatible with this philosophy is that of
self-development. Illogically, however, a man may
consider Ms family and his nation more intimately
a part of Ms ego than other human beings^ and there-
fore more to be valued. Belief in race and nationalism
is thus a psychologically natural outcome of a
soipsistic philosophy all the more since love of
power obviously inspires the theory, and power can
only be acMeved with the help of others.

All this is known as "idealism," and is considered
morally nobler than a philosophy which admits
the reality of the external world.

The reality of what is independent of my own will
is embodied^ for philosophy, in the conception of
"truth-" The truth of my beliefs, in the view of
common sense, does not depend, in most cases s upon
anything that I can do. It is true that if I believe
I shall eat my breakfast tomorrow, my belief, if
true, is so partly in virtue of my own future volitions ;
but if I believe that Caesar was murdered on the
Ides of March, what makes my belief true lies wholly
outside the power of my will. Philosophies inspired
by love of power find this situation unpleasant, and
therefore set to work, in various ways, to undermine
the common-sense conception of facts as the sources
of truth or falsehood in beliefs. Hegelians maintain
that truth does not consist in agreement with fact,
but in the mutual consistency of the whole system
of our beliefs. All your beliefs are true if, like the
events in a good novel, they all fit together; there
is, in fact, no difference between truth for the
novelist and truth for the historian. TMs gives

POWER

freedom to creative fancy, which it liberates from
the shackles of the supposed "real" world.

Pragmatisms in some of its forms, is a power*
philosophy. For pragmatism, a belief is "true" I
Its consequences are pleasant. Now human beings
can make the consequences of a belief pleasant or
unpleasant. Belief in the superior merit of a dictator
has pleasanter consequences than disbelief, if von
live under his government. Wherever there is effective
persecution, the official creed is "true 53 in the
pragmatist sense. The pragmatist philosophy, there-
fore, gives to those in power a metaphysical omni-
potence which a more pedestrian philosophy would
deny to them. I do not suggest that most pragmatists
admit these consequences of their philosophy; I
say only that they are consequences, and that the
pragmatisms attack on the common view of truth
is an outcome of love of power, though perhaps
more of power over inanimate nature than of power
over other human beings.

Bergson's Creative Evolution is a power-philosophy,
which has been developed fantastically in the last
Act of Bernard Shaw's Back to Methuselah. Berg-
son holds that the intellect is to be condemned
as unduly passive and merely contemplative, and
that we only see truly during vigorous action such
as a cavalry charge. He believes that animals
acquired eyes because they felt that it would be
pleasant to be able to see ; their intellects would not
have been able to think about seeing, since they
were blind s but intuition was able to perform this
miracle. All evolution, according to him, is due to

268

POWER PHILOSOPHIES

desire, and there is no limit to what can be achieved
if desire is sufficiently passionate. The groping
attempts of bio-chemists to understand the mechan-
ism of life are futile, since life is not mechanical,
and its development is always such as the intellect
is inherently incapable of imagining in advance;
it is only in action that life can be understood. It
follows that men should be passionate and irrational ;
fortunately for Bergson's happiness > they usually are.
Some philosophers do not allow their power
impulses to dominate their metaphysics, but give
them free rein in ethics. Of these, the most important
is Nietzsche, who rejects Christian morality as that
of slaves, and supplies in its place a morality suitable
to heroic rulers. This is, of course, not essentially
new. Something of it is to be found in Heraclitus,
something in Plato, much in the Renaissance, But
in Nietzsche it is worked out, and set up in conscious
opposition to the teaching of the New Testament,
In his view, the herd have no value on their own
account, but only as means to the greatness of the
hero, who has a right to inflict injury upon them
if thereby he can further his own self-development
In practice^ aristocracies have always acted in a
manner which only some such ethic could justify;
but Christian theory has held that in the sight of
God all men are equal. Democracy can appeal to
Christian teaching for support; but for aristocracy
the best ethic is Nietzsche's* sc lf there were

D 3

how could I bear to be not a god? Therefore there axe
no gods." So says Nietzsche's Zarathustra. God most
be dethroned to make room for earthly tyrants.

POWER

The love of power is a part of normal human
nature, but power-philosophies are, in a certain
precise sense, insane. The existence of the external
world, both that of matter and that of other human
beings, is a datum, which may be humiliating to a
certain kind of pride, but can only be denied by a
madman. Men who allow their love of power to
give them a distorted view of the world are to be
found in every asylum : one man will think he is the
Governor of the Bank of England, another will think
he is the King, and yet another will think he is God,
Highly similar delusions, if expressed by educated
men in obscure language, lead to professorships of
philosophy ; and if expressed by emotional men in
eloquent language, lead to dictatorships. Cirtijkd
lunatics are shut up because of their proneness
to violence when their pretensions are questioned;
the uncertified variety are given the control of power-
ful armies, and can inflict death and disaster
upon all sane men within their reach. The success
of insanity, in literature, in philosophy, and in
politics, is one of the peculiarities of our age, and
the successful form of insanity proceeds almost
entirely from impulses towards power.

To understand this situation, we must consider
the relation of power philosophies to 'social life,
which is more complex than might have been

expected.

Let us begin with solipsism. When Fichte main-
tains that everything starts from the ego, the reader
does not say: "Everything start from Johann
Gottlieb Fichte ! How absurd ! Why, I never heard

270

POWER PHILOSOPHIES

of Mm til! a few days ago. And how about the times
before he was bom? Does he really imagine that
lie invented them? What ridiculous conceit!" TMs,
I repeat, is what the reader does not say; he sub-
stitutes himself for Fichte, and finds the argument
not implausible. "After all/ 3 he thinks,, "what do
1 know of past times? Only that / have had certain
experiences which I chose to interpret as related
to a period before I was born. And what do I know
of places I have never seen? Only that / have seen
them on the map, have read of them, or have heard
tdl of them. I know only my own experience; the
rest is doubtful inference. If I choose to put myself
in the place of God, and say that the world is my
creation^ nothing can prove to me that I am mis-
taken." Fichte maintains that there is only Fichte 5
and John Smith, reading the argument^ concludes
that there is only John Smith, without ever noticing
that this is not what Fichte says.

In this way it is possible for solipsism to become
the basis for a certain kind of social life. A collection
of lunatics, each of whom thinks he is God, may
learn to behave politely to one another. But the
politeness will only last as long as each God finds
Ms omnipotence not thwarted by any of the other
divinities. If Mr. A. thinks he is God, he may tolerate
the pretensions of others so long as their acts minister
to Ms purposes. But if Mr. B. ventures to thwart Mnij
and to provide evidence that he is not omnipotent,
Mr. A.*s wrath will be kindled, and lie will perceive
that Mr. B. is Satan or one of his ministers. Mr. B.,
of course^ will take the same view of Mr. A. Eadi

POWER

will form a party, and there will be war theological
war, bitter, cruel, and mad. For "Mr. A." read
Hitler, for "Mr. B." read Stalin, and you have a
picture of the modern world. "I am Wo tan!" says
Hitler. "I am Dialectical Materialism P s says Stalk.
And since the claim of each is supported by vast
resources in the way of armies, aeroplanes, poison
gases, and innocent enthusiasts, the madness of both
remains unnoticed.

Take, next, Nietzsche's cult of the hero, to whom
the "bungled and botched 53 are to be sacrificed.
The admiring reader is, of course, convinced that
he himself is a hero, whereas that rascal so-and-so,
who has got ahead of him by unscrupulous intrigues*
is one of the bungled and botched. It follows that
Nietzsche's philosophy is excellent. But if so-and-so
also reads it, and also admires it, how is it to IK
decided which is the hero? Obviously only by war,
And when one of the two has achieved victory, he
will have to keep on proving his right to the title
of hero by remaining in power. In order to do this,
lie must create a vigorous secret police ; he will live
in fear of assassination, every one else will be terrified
of delation, and the cult of heroism will end by
producing a nation of trembling poltroons.

Use same sort of troubles arise with the prag-
matist theory that a belief is true if the consequences
are pleasant. Pleasant to whom? Belief in Stalin is
pleasant for him but unpleasant for Trotsky. Belief
in Hitler is pleasant for the Nazis, but unpleasant
for those whom they put in concentration camps.
Nothing but naked force can decide the question;

272

POWER PHILOSOPHIES

Who is to enjoy the pleasant consequences which

that a belief is true?

Power philosophies, when account is taken of their
social consequences, are self-refuting. The belief
that I am God, if no one shares it, leads to my being
shut up ; if others share it, it leads to a war in which
I probably perish. The cult of the hero produces
a nation of cowards. Belief in pragmatism, if wide-
spread, leads to the rule of naked force, which is
unpleasant; therefore^ by its own criterion, belief
in pragmatism is false. If social life is to satisfy social
desires, it must be based upon some philosophy not
derived from the love of power.

CHAPTER XVII

THE ETHICS OF POWER

WE have been concerned so much, in the preceding
pages, with the evils connected with power, that
it might seem natural to draw an ascetic conclusion,
and to urge, as the best manner of life for the
individual, a complete renunciation of all attempts
to influence others, whether for good or evil. Ever
since Lao-Tse, this view has had advocates who were
both eloquent and wise; it has been held by many
mysticsj by the quietists, and by those who valued
personal holiness, conceived as a state of mind rather
than as an activity. I cannot agree with these men,
although I admit that some of them have been highly
beneficent But they have been so because, though
they believed that they had renounced power, they
had, in fact, renounced it only in certain forms ; if
they had renounced it completely, they would not
have proclaimed their doctrines, and would not have
been beneficent They renounced coercive power,
but not the power that rests upon persuasion.

Love of power, in its widest sense, is the desire to
be able to produce intended effects upon the outer
world, whether human or non-human. This desire
is an essential part of human nature, and in energetic
men it is a very large and important part. Every
desire, if it cannot be instantly gratified, brings about
a wish for the ability to gratify it, and therefore
some form of the love of power. This is true of the

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THE ETHICS OF POWER

best desires as well as the worst. If you love your
neighbour, you will wish for power to make him

happy. To condemn all love of power, therefore,
is to condemn love of your neighbour.
There is, however 3 a great difference between

power desired as a means and power desired as an
end in itself. The man who desires power as a means
has first some other desire, and is then led to wish
that he were in a position to achieve it. The man who
desires power as an end will choose his objective by
the possibility of securing it. In politics, for example,
one man wishes to see certain measures enacted s
and is thus led to take part in public affairs, wMle
another man, wishing only for personal success,
adopts whatever programme seems most likely to
lead to this result.

Christ's third temptation in the wilderness Illus-
trates this distinction. He is offered all the kingdoms
of the earth if He will fall down and worship Satan;
that is to say, He is offered power to achieve certain
objects, but not those that He has in view. This
temptation is one to which almost every modern man
is exposed, sometimes in a gross form, sometime
in a very subtle one. He may, though a Socialist,
accept a position on a Conservative newspaper;
this is a comparatively gross form. He may despair
of the achievement of Socialism by peaceful means,
and become a Communist, not because he thinks
that what he wants will be achieved in this way, but
because he thinks that will be achieved.

To advocate unsuccessfully what he wants seems to
Mm more futile than to advocate successfully

275

POWER

he does not want. But if his wants, other than personal
success* are strong and definite, there will b^ no

satisfaction to his sense of power unless those wants
are satisfied, and to change his objects for the sak
of success will seem to Mm an act of apostasy which
might be described as worshipping Satan.

Love of power, if it is to be beneficent s must be
bound up with some end other than power. I do not
mean that there must be no love of power for its own
sake, for this motive is sure to arise in the course of
an active career; I mean that the desire for some
other end must be so strong that power is unsatisfying
unless it ministers to this end.

It is not enough that there should be a purpose
other than power; it is necessary that this purpose
should be one which, if achieved, will help to satisfy
the desires of others. If you aim at discovery, or
artistic creation, or the invention of a labour-saving
machine,, or the reconciliation of groups hitherto at
enmity with each other, your success, if you succeedj
is likely to be a cause of satisfactions to others
besides yourself. This is the second condition that
love of power must fulfil if it is to be beneficent ; it
must be linked to some purpose which is, broadly
speaking, in harmony with the desires of the other
people who will be affected if the purpose is realized.

There is a third condition, somewhat more difficult
to formulate. The means of realizing your purpose
must not be such as will incidentally have bad effects
outweighing the excellence of the end to be achieved.
Every man's character and desires undergo per-
petual modification as a result of what he does and

276

THE ETHICS OF POWER

what tie suffers. Violence and Injustice breed violence
and injustice, both in those who inSict them and in
their victims. Defeat, if it is incomplete, breeds
rage and hatred, while if it is complete it breeds
apathy and inaction. Victory by force produces
mthlessness and contempt for the vanquished ,
however exalted may have been the original motives
for war. All these considerations, while they do not
prove that no good purpose can ever be achieved
by force, do show that force is very dangerous, and
that when there is very much of it any original good
purpose is likely to be lost sight of before the end of
the strife.

The existence of civilized communities, however,
is impossible without some element of force, since
there are criminals and men of anti-social ambitions
who, if unchecked, would soon cause a reversion to
anarchy and barbarism. Where force is unavoidable,
it should be exerted by the constituted authority
in accordance with the will of the community as
expressed in the criminal law. There are, however,
two difficulties at this point: first, that the most
important uses of force are between different States,
where there is no common government and no
effectively acknowledged law or judicial authority ;
second, that the concentration of force in the hands
of the government enables it, to some extent, to
tyrannize over the rest of the community. Each of
these difficulties I shall consider in the next chapter.
IE the present chapter I am considering power ia
relation to individual morality, not in relation to the
government.

POWER

Love of power, like lust, is such a strong motive
that it influences most men's actions more than they
think it should. It may therefore be argued that
the ethic which will produce the best consequences
will be one more hostile to love of power than
reason can justify : since men are pretty sure to sin
against their own code in the direction of the pursuit
of power, their acts, it may be said, will be about
right if their code is somewhat too severe. A man who
is propounding an ethical doctrine can, however,
hardly allow himself to be influenced by such
considerations, since, if he does, he is obliged to le
consciously in the interests of virtue. The desire
to be edifying rather than truthful is the bane of
preachers and educators; and whatever may be
said in its favour theoretically, it is in practice
unznitigatedly harmful. We must admit that mea
have acted badly from love of power, and will con-
tinue to do so; but we ought not, on this account,
to maintain that love of power is undesirable in
forms and circumstances in which we believe it to be
beneficial or at least innocuous.

The forms that a man's love of power will tale
depend upon his temperament, his opportunities,
and his skill; his temperament, moreover, is largely
moulded by Ms circumstances. To turn an individ-
ual's love of power into specified channels is, there-
fore, a matter of providing him with the right
circumstances, the right opportunities, and the
appropriate type of skill. This leaves out of account
the question of congenital disposition, which, in so
far as it is amenable to treatment, is a matter for

THE ETHICS OF POWER

eugenics ; but It Is probably only a small percentage
of the population that cannot be led, by the above
means, to choose some useful form of activity.

To begin with circumstances as affecting tempera-
ment : the source of cruel impulses is usually to be
found either in an unfortunate childhood, or in
experiences, such as those of civil war, in which
suffering and death are frequently seen and inflicted;
absence of any legitimate outlet for energy in
adolescence and early youth may have the same
effect. I believe that few men are cruel if they have
had a wise early education, have not lived among
scenes of violence, and have not had undue diffi-
culty in finding a career: Given these conditions,,
most men's love of power will prefer, if it can, to
find a beneficent or at least harmless outlet.

The question of opportunity has both a positive
and a negative aspect: it is important that there
shall not be opportunity for the career of a pirate,
or a brigand, or a dictator, as well as that there
should be opportunity for a less destructive profession.
There must be a strong government, to prevent
crime, and a wise economic system > both to prevent
the possibility of legal forms of brigandage, and to
offer attractive careers to as many young people as
possible. This is much easier in a community which
is growing richer than in one which is growing
poorer. Nothing improves the moral level of a
community as much as an increase of wealth,
nothing lowers it so much as a diminution of wealth.
The harshness of the general outlook from the Rhine
to 1 the Pacific at the present day is very largely due

POWER

to the fact that so many people are poorer than their
parents were.
The importance of skill in determining the form

taken by love of power is very great Destruction,
broadly speaking, apart from certain forms of modern
war, requires very little skill, whereas construction
always requires some, and in the highest forms
requires a great deal Most men who have acquired
a difficult type of skill enjoy exercising it, and prefer
this activity to easier ones ; this is because the difficult
kind of skill, other tilings being equal, is more
satisfying to love of power. The man who has leamt
to throw bombs from an aeroplane will prefer this
to the humdrum occupations that will be open to
him in peace time; but the man who has learnt (say)
to combat yellow fever will prefer this to the work
of an army surgeon in war time. Modem war
involves a very great deal of skill, and this helps
to make it attractive to various kinds of experts.
Much scientific skill is needed equally in peace and
in war; there is no way by which a scientific pacifist
can make sure that his discoveries or inventions
will not be used to increase the destruction in the
next struggle. Nevertheless, there is, speaking
broadly, a distinction between the kinds of skill that
find most scope in peace and those that find most
scope in war. In so far as such a distinction exists,
a man's love of power will incline him to peace if
his skill is of the former kind, and to war if it is of the
latter. In such ways, technical training can do much
to determine what form love of power shall take.

It is not altogether true that persuasion is one

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THE ETHICS OF POWER

thing and force is another. Many forms of per-
suasion even many of which everybody approves
are really a kind of force. Consider what we do to
our children. We do not say to them: "Some people
think the earth is round, and others think it is flat;
when you grow up, you can, if you Eke, examine the
evidence and form your own conclusion. 53 Instead
of this we say: The earth is- round." By the time
our children are old enough to examine the evidence,
our propaganda has closed their minds, and the
most persuasive arguments of the Flat Earth Society
make no impression. The same applies to the moral
precepts that we consider really important^ such as
"don't pick your nose 3 * or "don't eat peas with a
knife." There may, for aught I know, be admirable
reasons for eating peas with, a knife,, but the hypnotic
effect of early persuasion has made me completely
incapable of appreciating them.

The ethics of power cannot consist in distinguishing
some kinds of power as legitimate and others as
illegitimate. As we have just seen, we all approve,
in certain cases, of a kind of persuasion which is
essentially a use of force. Almost everybody would
approve of physical violence, even killing, in easily
imagined conditions. Suppose you had come
Guy Fawkes in the very act of firing the train,
suppose you could only have prevented the disaster
by shooting him; most pacifists^ even, would
that you would have done right to shoot. The
to deal with the question by abstract prin-

ciples, praising acts of one type and blaming acts
of another, is futile ; we must judge the of

POWER

power by its effects, and we must therefore first
make up our minds as to what effects we desire.

For my part, I consider that whatever Is good or
bad is embodied in individuals, not primarily in
communities. Some philosophies which could be
used to support the corporative State notably the
philosophy of Hegel attribute ethical qualities to
communities as such, so that a State may be admir-
able though most of its citizens are wretched. I think
that such philosophies are tricks for justifying the
privileges of the holders of power, and that, whatever
our politics may be, there can be no valid argument
for an undemocratic ethic. I mean by an undemo-
cratic ethic one which singles out a certain portion
of mankind and says "these men are to enjoy the
good things, and the rest are merely to minister to
them* 3 * I should reject such an ethic in any case,
but it has, as we saw in the last chapter, the dis-
advantage of being self-refuting, since it is very
unlikely that, in practice, the supermen will be able
to live the kind of life that the aristocratic theorist
imagines for them.

Some objects of desire are such as can, logically,
be enjoyed by all, while others must, by their very
nature, be confined to a portion of the community.
All might with a little rational co-operation be
fairly well off, but it is impossible for all to enjoy
the pleasure of being richer than their neighbours.
All can enjoy a certain degree of self-direction, but
it is impossible for all to be dictators over others.
Perhaps in time there will be a population in which
everybody is fairly intelligent, but it is not possible

282

THE ETHICS OF POWER

for all to secure the rewards bestowed on
intelligence. And so on.

Social co-operation is possible in regard to the
cr(x>d things that are capable of being universal
adequate material well-being, health, intelligence,
and every form of happiness which does not consist
in superiority to others. But the forms of happiness
which consist of victory in a competition cannot be
universal. The former kind of happiness is promoted
by friendly feeling, the latter (and its correlative
iinhappiness) by unfriendly feeling. Unfriendly
feeling can wholly inhibit the rational pursuit of
happiness; it does so at present in what concerns
the economic relations of nations. Given a population
in which friendly feelings preponderate, there will
be no clash between the interests of different individ-
uals or different groups ; the clashes which at present
exist are caused by unfriendly feeling, which they
in turn intensify. England and Scotland fought each
other for centuries; at last, by an accident of in-
heritance, they came to have the same king, and the
wars ceased. Everybody was happier in consequence,
even Dr. Johnson, whose jests doubtless afforded liini
more pleasure than he would have derived from
victorious battles.

We can now arrive at certain conclusions on the
subject of the ethics of power.

The ultimate aim of those who have power (and
we all have some) should be to promote co~

operation not in one group as against another, but
in the whole human race. The chief to this

aid at present is the existence offerings of unfriendM-

POWER

ness and desire for superiority. Such feelings can be
diminished either directly by religion and morality,
or indirectly by removing the political and economk

circumstances which at present stimulate them

notably the competition for power between State
and the connected competition for wealth between
large national industries. Both methods are needed:
they are not alternatives, but supplement each other.
The Great War, and its aftermath of dictatorships,
has caused many to underestimate all forms of power
except military and governmental force. This is a
short-sighted and unhistorical view. If I had to
select four men who have had more power than any
others, 1 should mention Buddha and Christ,
Pythagoras and Galileo. No one of these four had
the support of the State until after his propaganda
had achieved a great measure of success. No one
of the four had much success in his own lifetime. No
one of the four would have affected human life as
he has done if power had been his primary object
No one of the four sought the kind of power that
enslaves others, but the kind that sets them free in
the case of the first two, by showing how to master
the desires that lead to strife, and thence to defeat
slavery and subjection; in the case of the second
two, by pointing the way towards control of natural
forces. It is not ultimately by violence that men are
ruled, but by the wisdom of those who appeal to
the common desires of mankind, for happiness^
for inward and outward peace, and for the under-
standing of the world in which, by no choice of our
own, we have to live.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE TAMING OF POWER

*!N passing by the side of Mount Thai, Confucius
came on a woman who was weeping bitterly by a
grave. The Master pressed forward and drove quickly
to her; then he sent Tze-lu to question her, 4 Your
wailing, 3 said he, 'is that of one who has suffered
sorrow on sorrow.* She replied s "that is so. Once my
husband's father was killed here by a tiger. My
husband was also killed, and now my son has died
in the same way. 3 The Master said, why do you not
leave the place? 5 The answer was, *there is no
oppressive government here. 3 The Master then said^
'Remember this, my children: oppressive govern-
ment is more terrible than tigers. 5 "

The subject of the present chapter is the problem
of insuring that government shall be less terrible than
tigers.

The problem of the taming of power is, as the
above quotation shows, a very ancient one. The
Taoists thought it insoluble, and advocated anarch-
ism ; the Confucians trusted to a certain ethical and
governmental training which should turn the holders
of power into sages endowed with moderation
benevolence. At the same period, in Greece, demo-
cracy, oligarchy, and tyranny were contending for
mastery; democracy was intended to check
of power, but was perpetually defeating itself by
falling a victim to the temporary popularity of

POWER

some demagogue. Plato, like Confucius, sought the
solution in a government of men trained to wisdom.
TMs view has been revived by Mr. and Mrs. Sidney
Webb, who admire an oligarchy in which power is
confined to those who have the "vocation of leader-
ship." In the interval between Plato and the Webbs
the world has tried military autocracy, theocracy^
hereditary monarchy, oligarchy, democracy, and
the Rule of the Saints the last of these, after the
failure of Cromwell's experiment, having been
revived in our day by Lenin and Hitler. All this
suggests that our problem has not yet been solved.

To anyone who studies history or human nature,
it must be evident that democracy, while not a
complete solution, is an essential part of the solution.
The complete solution is not to be found by confining
ourselves to political conditions; we must take
account also of economics, of propaganda, and of
psychology as affected by circumstances and educa-
tion. Our subject thus divides itself into four parts ;
(I) political conditions, (II) economic conditions,
(III) propaganda conditions, and (IV) psychological
and educational conditions. Let us take these in
succession.

The merits of democracy are negative : it does not

insure good government, but it prevents certain
evils. Until women began to take part in political
affairs, married women had no control over their
own property, or even over their own earnings; a
diarwoman with a drunken husband had no re-

THE TAMING OF POWER

dress if he prevented her from using her wages for
support of her children. The oligarchical Parliament

of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries
used its legislative power to increase the wealth of
the rich by depressing the condition of both rural

and urban labour. Only democracy has prevented
the law from making trade unionism impossible.
But for democracy. Western America, Australia, and
New Zealand would be inhabited by a semi-servile
yellow population governed by a small white
aristocracy. The evils of slavery and serfdom are
familiar, and wherever a minority has a secure
monopoly of political power, the majority is likely
to sink, sooner or later, into either slavery or serfdom.
All history shows that, as might be expected,
minorities cannot be trusted to care for the interests
of majorities.

There is a tendency, as strong now as at any former
time, to suppose that an oligarchy is admirable if it
consists of "good 33 men. The government of the
Roman Empire was "bad" until Constantine, and
then it became "good/ 9 In the Book of Kings, there
were those who did right in the sight of the Lord,
and those who did evil. In English history as taught
to children, there are "good 3 * kings "bad"

kings. An oligarchy of Jews is a bad," but one of
Nazis is "good. 9 * The oligarchy of Tsarist aristocrats
was "bad/* but that of the Communist Party is
"good.**

This attitude is unworthy of grown-up people. A
child is "good 59 when it obeys orders, and "naughty"
when it does not When it grows op and a

POWER

political leader, it retains the ideas of the nursery
and defines the "good" as those who obey its orders
and the "bad" as those who defy it. Consequently
our own political party consists of "good" men
and the opposite party consists of "bad 51 men.
4i Good" government is government by our group,
"bad" government that by the other group. The
Montagues are "good," the Capulets "bad," or vice
versa.

Such a point of view, if taken seriously, makes
social life impossible. Only force can decide which
group is "good" and which "bad," and the decision,
when made, may at any moment be upset by an
insurrection. Neither group, if it attains power,
will care for the interests of the other, except in so
far as it is controlled by the fear of rousing rebellion,
Social life, if it is to be anything better than tyranny,
demands a certain impartiality. But since, in many
matters, collective action is necessary, the only
practicable form of impartiality, in such matters, is
the rule of the majority.

Democracy, however, though necessary, is by
no means the only political condition required
for the taming of power. It is possible, in a democracy,
for the majority to exercise a brutal and wholly
unnecessary tyranny over a minority. In the period
from 1885 to 1922, the government of the United
Kingdom was (except for the exclusion of women)
democratic, but that did not prevent the oppression
of Ireland. Not only a national, but a religious or
political minority may be persecuted. The safe-
guarding of minorities, so far as is compatible with

288

THE TAMING OF POWER

orderly government. Is an essential part of the taming
of power.

This requires a consideration of the matters as to
which the community must act as a whole, and those
as to which uniformity is unnecessary. The most
obvious questions as to which a collective decision
is imperative are those that are essentially geogra-
phical. Roads, railways, sewers, gas mains, and so
on, must take one course and not another. Sanitary
precautions., say against plague or rabies, are
geographical : it would not do for Christian Scientists
to announce that they will take no precautions
against infection, because they might infect others.
War is a geographical phenomenon, unless it is civil
war, and even then it soon happens that one area is
dominated by one side,, and another by the other.

Where there is a geographically concentrated
minority, such as the Irish before 1922, it is possible
to solve a great many problems by devolution. But
when the minority is distributed throughout the
area concerned, this method is largely inapplicable,
Where Christian and Mohammedan populations ive
side by side, they have, it is true, different marriage
laws, but except where religion is concerned they
all have to submit to one government. It has
gradually discovered that theological uniformity
is not necessary to a State, and that Protestants and
Catholics can live peaceably together under one
government. But this was not the case during the
first 130 years after the Reformation.

The question of tie degree of Eberfy that is
compatible with order is one that cannot be settled

POWER

in the abstract. The only thing that can be said in
the abstract is that, where there is no technical
reason for a collective decision, there should be
some strong reason connected with public order if
freedom is to be interfered with. In the reign of
Elizabeth, when Roman Catholics wished to deprive
her of the throne, it is not surprising that the govern-
ment viewed them with disfavour. Similarly in the
Low Countries, where Protestants were in revolt
against Spain, it was to be expected that the Spani-
ards would persecute them. Now-a-days theological
questions have not the same political importance.
Even political differences, if they do not go too deep 5
are no reason for persecution. Conservatives, Liber-
als, and Labour people can all live peaceably side
by side, because they do not wish to alter the Con-
stitution by force ; but Fascists and Communists are
more difficult to assimilate, Where there is democ-
racy, attempts of a minority to seize power by force a
and incitements to such attempts, may reasonably
be forbidden, on the ground that a law-abiding
majority has a right to a quiet life if it can secure it.
But there should be toleration of all propaganda not
involving incitement to break the law, and the law
should be as tolerant as is compatible with technical
efficiency and the maintenance of order. I shall
return to this subject under the head of psychology.
From the point of view of the taming of power,
very difficult questions arise as to the best size of a
governmental unit. In a great modern State, even
when it is a democracy, the ordinary citizen has very
little sense of political power; he does not decide
290

THE TAMING OF POWER

what are to be the Issues in an election, they probably
concern matters remote from his daily life and almost
wholly outside his experience, and his vote makes so
small a contribution to the total as to seem to himself
negligible. In the ancient City State these evils were
much less ; so they are, at present, in local govern-
ment. It might have been expected that the public
would take more interest in local than in national
questions, but this is not the case ; on the contrary,
the larger the area concerned, the greater is the
percentage of the electorate that takes the trouble to
vote. This is partly because more money is spent on
propaganda in important elections, partly because
the issues are in themselves more exciting. The most
exciting issues are those involving war and relations
to possible enemies. I remember an old yokel in
January, 1910, who told me he was going to vote
Conservative (which was against Ms economic
interests), because he had been persuaded that if
the Liberals were victorious the Germans would be
in the country within a week. It is not to be supposed
that he ever voted in Parish Council elections,,
though in them he might have had some under-
standing of the issues; these issue failed to move
Mm. because they were not such as to generate
hysteria or the myths upon which it feeds.

There is thus a dilemma : democracy gives a
a feeling that he has an effective share in political
power when the group concerned is small, but not
when it is large ; on the other hand, the is likely
to strike him as important when the group con-
cerned is large, but not when it is smalt

291

POWER

To some extent this difficulty is avoided when a
constituency is vocational, not geographical ; a really
effective democracy is possible, for example, in a
trade union. Each branch can meet to discuss a
vexed question of policy; the members have a
similarity of interest and experience, and this makes
fruitful discussion possible. The final decision of the
whole union may, therefore, be one in which a large
percentage of members feel that they have had a
part.

This method, however, has obvious limitations.
Many questions are so essentially geographical that
a geographical constituency is unavoidable. Public
bodies affect our lives at so many points that a busy
man who is not a politician cannot take action about
most of the local or national issues that concern
him. The best solution would probably be an exten-
sion of the method of the trade union official, who is
elected to represent a certain interest. At present,
many interests have no such representative. Democ-
racy, if it is to exist psychologically as well as politi-
cally, demands organization of the various interests,
and their representation, in political bargaining, by
men who enjoy whatever influence is justified by
the numbers and enthusiasm of their constituents.
I do not mean that these representatives should be a
substitute for Parliament, but that they should be
the channel by which Parliament is made aware of
the wishes of various groups of citizens.

A federal system is desirable whenever the local
interests and sentiments of the constituent units are
stronger than the interests and sentiments connected

292

THE TAMING OF POWER

with the federation. If there were ever an inter-
national government. It would obviously have to be
a federation of national governments, with strictly
defined powers. There are already international
authorities for certain purposes, e.g. postage, but
these are purposes which do not interest the public
so much as do those dealt with by national govern-
ments. Where this condition is absent, the federal
government tends to encroach upon the governments
of the several units. In the United States, the federal
government has gained at the expense of the States
ever since the Constitution was first enacted* The
same tendency existed in Germany from 1871 to
1918. Even a federal government of the world, if It
found itself involved in a civil war on the question
of secession, as might well happen, would, if victor-
ious, be immeasurably strengthened as against the
various national governments. Thus the efficacy
of federation, as a method, has very definite limits;
but within these limits it is desirable and important.
Very large governmental areas are, it would seem,
quite unavoidable in the modern world; indeed,
for some of the most important purposes, especially
peace and war, the whole world is the only
area. The psychological disadvantage of
areas especially the sense of impotence in the
average voter, and Ms ignorance as to of the

issues must be admitted, and minimized as far as
possible, partly, as suggested above, by the organiza-
tion of separate interests, and partly by
or devolution. Some subjection of the
is an inevitable consequence of

POWER

organization. But if the danger of war were
ated 3 local questions would again come to the fore
and men's political interests would be much mm
concerned than at present with questions as to which
they could have both knowledge and an effective
voice. For it is the fear of war, more than anything
else, which compels men to direct their attention
to distant countries and to the external activities of
their own government.

Where democracy exists, there is still need to
safeguard individuals and minorities against tyranny^
both because tyranny is undesirable in itself and
because it is likely to lead to breaches of order.
Montesquieu's advocacy of the separation of legisla-
tive, executive, and judiciary, the traditional English
belief in checks and balances, Bentham's political
doctrines, and the whole of nineteenth-century
liberalism, were designed to prevent the arbitrary
exercise of power. But such methods have come to
be considered incompatible with efficiency. No douht
the separation of the War Office and the Horse
Guards was a safeguard against military dictator-
ship, but it had disastrous results in the Crimean
War. When, in former times, the legislature and
the executive disagreed, the result was a highly
inconvenient deadlock; now in England, efficiency
is secured by uniting both powers, to all intents and
purposes, in the Cabinet. The eighteenth and nine-
teenth century methods of preventing arbitrary
power no longer suit our circumstances, and such
new methods as exist are not yet very effective.
There is need of associations to safeguard this or

294

THE TAMIXG OF POWER

that form of liberty, and to bring swift criticism to
bear upon officials^ police*

* A * '** *< ^ ^

exceed their powers. There is also of a

certain political balance in every important branch
of the public service. For example, there is
to democracy in the fact that average opinion in the
police and the air force is far more reactionary
In the countrv at lar^e.

* Q

In every democracy, individuals and organiza-
tions which are intended to have onlv well-

defined executive functions are likely., if
to acquire a very undesirable independent
This is especially true of the police. The evils

JL f JL w

from an insufficiently supervised police arc

very forcibly set forth, as the United

in Our Lawless Police^ by Ernest Jerome

The gist of the matter is that a is

for action leading to the conviction of a criminal,.

that the Courts accept as of

guilt, and that, in consequence, it is to the

of individual officers to torture

they confess. This evil exists in all in a

greater or less degree. In India it is The

O w* *

desire to a the of the

tortures of the Inquisition, la OH

of suspected was habitual., a

tarian Emperor no

be condemned except OB Ms own confession. For tic
taming of the power of the h

a confession shall never, in any
be accepted as evidence.
This reform^ however, is

POWER

no means sufficient. The police system of all conn-
tries is based upon the assumption that the col-
lection of evidence against a suspected criminal is
a matter of public interest, but that the collection of
evidence in his favour is his private concern. It is
often said to be more important that the innocent
should be acquitted than that the guilty should be
condemned, but everywhere it is the duty of the
police to seek evidence of guilt, not of innocence.
Suppose you are unjustly accused of murder, and
there is a good prima facie case against you. The whole
of the resources of the State ai:e set in motion to
seek out possible witnesses against you, and the ablest
lawyers are employed by the State to create prejudice
against you in the minds of the jury. You, mean-
while, must spend your private fortune collecting
evidence of your innocence, with no public organiza-
tion to help you. If you plead poverty, you will be
allotted Counsel, but probably not so able a man as
the public prosecutor. If you succeed in securing
an acquittal, you can only escape bankruptcy by
means of the cinemas and the Sunday Press. But it
is only too likely that you will be unjustly convicted.

If law-abiding citizens are to be protected against
unjust persecution by the police, there must be two
police forces and two Scotland Yards, one designed,
as at present, to prove guilt, the other to prove
innocence ; and in addition to the public prosecutor
there must be a public defender, of equal legal
eminence. This is obvious as soon as it is admitted
that the acquittal of the innocent is no less a public
interest than the condemnation of the guilty. The

296

THE TAMING OF POWER

defending police force should, moreover^ become the
prosecuting police force where one class of crimes
is concerned, namely crimes committed by the
prosecuting police in the execution of their "duty."
By this means, but by no other (so far as I can see),
the present oppressive power of the police could be
mitigated.

I come now to the economic conditions required
in order to minimize arbitrary power. This subject
is of great importance, both on its own account, and
because there has been a very great deal of confusion
of thought in relation to it.

Political democracy, while it solves a part of our
problem, does not by any means solve the whole.
Marx pointed out that there could be no real
equalization of power through politics alone, while
economic power remained monarchical or oligarchic.
It followed that economic power must be in the hands
of the State, and that the State must be democratic.
Those who profess, at the present day, to be Marx's
followers, have kept only the half of his doctrine,
and have thrown over die demand that the State
should be democratic. They have thus concentrated
both economic and political power in the of

an oligarchy, which has become, in consequence,
more powerful and more able to exercise tyranny
than any oligarchy of former times.

Both old-fashioned democracy and new-fashioned >
Maoism have aimed at the taxning of power. The
former failed because it was only political^ the latter

297

POWER

because it was only economic. Without a combina-
tion of both, nothing approaching to a solution of
the problem is possible.

The arguments in favour of State ownership of
land and the large economic organizations are partly
technical, partly political. The technical arguments
have not been much stressed except by the Fabian
Society, and to some extent in America in connection
with such matters as the Tennessee Valley Authority.
Nevertheless they are very strong, especially in
connection with electricity and water power, and
cause even Conservative governments to introduce
measures which, from a technical point of view, are
socialistic. We have seen how, as a result of modern
technique,, organizations tend to grow and to coalesce
and to increase their scope; the inevitable conse-
quence is that the political State must either in-
creasingly take over economic functions, or partially
abdicate in favour of vast private enterprises which
are sufficiently powerful to defy or control it. If the
State does not acquire supremacy over such enter-
prises, it becomes their puppet, and they become
the real State. In one way or another, wherever
modem technique exists, economic and political
power must become unified. This movement towards
unification has the irresistible impersonal character
which Marx attributed to the development that he
prophesied. But it has nothing to do with the class
war or the wrongs of the proletariat.

Socialism as a political movement has aimed at
furthering the interests of industrial wage-earners;
its technical advantages have been kept compara-

298

THE TAMING OF POWER

lively in the background. The belief is that the
economic power of the private capitalist enables
him to oppress the wage-earner, and that, since die
wage-earner cannot s like the handicraftsman of
former times, individually own his means of pro-
duction, the only way of emancipating Mm is
collective ownership by the whole body of workers.
It is argued that, if the private capitalist were
expropriated, the whole body of the workers would
constitute the State; and that, consequently, the
problem of economic power can be solved com-
pletely by State ownership of land and capital, and
in no other way. This is a proposal for the taming
of economic power, and therefore comes within the
purview of our present discussion.

Before examining the argument, I wish to say
unequivocally that I consider it valid, provided it is
adequately safeguarded and amplified. Per
in the absence of such safeguarding and amplifying
I consider it very dangerous, and likely to mislead
those who seek liberation from economic tyranny
so completely that they will find they have inadver-
tently established a new tyranny at once economic
and political, more drastic and more terrible
any previously known.

In the first place, "ownership** is not the
thing as "control" If (say) a railway is owned bj
the State, and the State is considered to be the
body of the citizens, that does not insure, of
that the average citizen will have any over

the railway. Let us revert, for a moment, to
Messrs Berle and Means say about ownership and

999

POWER

control in large American corporations. They point
out that, in the majority of such corporations, all the
directors together usually own only about one or
two per cent of the stock, and yet, in effect, have
complete control :

"In the election of the board the stock holder
ordinarily has three alternatives. He can refrain
from voting, he can attend the annual meeting and
personally vote his stock, or he can sign a proxy
transferring his voting power to certain individuals
selected by the management of the corporation, the
proxy committee. As his personal vote will count for
little or nothing at the meeting unless he has a very
large block of stock, the stock holder is practically
reduced to the alternative of not voting at all or
else of handing over kis vote to individuals over whom he lias
no control and in whose selection he did not participate.
In neither case will he be able to exercise any measure
of control. Rather, control will tend to be in the
hands of those who select the proxy committee. . . .
Since the proxy committee is appointed by the
existing management, the latter can virtually
dictate their own successors. 3 ' 1

The helpless individuals described in the above
passage are, it should be noted, not proletarians,
but capitalists. They are part owners of the corpora-
tion concerned, in the sense that they have legal
rights which may, with luck, bring them in a certain
income; but owing to their lack of control, the
income is very precarious. When I first visited the
United States in 1896, I was struck by the enormous

1 Op. cit. a pp. 86-7.

THE TAMING OF POWER

number of railways that were bankrupt; on inquiry,
I found that this was not due to incompetence oa
die part of the directors, but to skill : the investments
of ordinary shareholders had been transferred, by
one device or another, to other companies in which
the directors had a large interest. This was a crude
method, and now-a-days matters are usually
managed in a more decorous fashion, but the prin-
ciple remains the same. In any large corporation
power is necessarily less diffused than ownership,
and carries with it advantages which, though at first
political, can be made sources of wealth to an
indefinite extent. The humble investor can be
politely and legally robbed ; the only limit is that he
must not have such bitter experiences as to lead Mm
to keep his future savings in a stocking.

The situation is in no way essentially different
when the State takes the place of a corporation;
indeed, since it is the size of the corporation
causes the helplessness of the average shareholder,
the average citizen is likely to be still more
as against the State. A battleship is public property,
but if, on this ground, you try to exercise of

ownership, you will be soon put in your place. You
have a remedy, it is true: at the General

Election, you can vote for a candidate who
a reduction in the Navy Estimates^ if you can
one; or you can write to the papers to
sailors should be more polite to sight-seers. But
than this you cannot do.

But, it is said, the battleship belongs to a
State, and when it belongs to a workers*

301

POWER

everything will be different. This view seems to me

to show a failure to grasp the fact that economic
power is now a matter of government rather than
ownership. If the United States Steel Corporation,
say, were taken over by the United States Govern-
ment, it would still need men to manage it; they
would either be the same men who now manage it,
or men with similar abilities and a similar outlook.
The attitude which they now have towards the
shareholders they would then have towards the
citizens. True, they would be subject to the govern-
ment, but unless it was democratic and responsive
to public opinion, it would have a point of view
closely similar to that of the officials.

Marxists, having retained, as a result of the author-
ity of Marx and Engels, many ways of thinking that
belong to the forties of last century, still conceive of
businesses as if they belonged to individual capitalists,
and have not learnt the lessons to be derived from
the separation of ownership and control. The im-
portant person is the man who has control of
economic power, not the man who has a fraction
of the nominal ownership. The Prime Minister does
not own No. 10 Downing Street, and Bishops do
not own their palaces; but it would be absurd
to pretend, on this account, that they are no better
off as regards housing than the average wage-earner.
Under any form of socialism which is not democratic,
those who control economic power can, without
"owning" anything, have palatial official residences,
the use of the best cars, a princely entertainment
allowance, holidays at the public expense in official

THE TAMING OF POWER

holiday resorts, and so on and so on. And why should
they have any more concern for the ordinary worker
than those in control have now? There can be no
reason why they should have, unless the ordinary
worker has power to deprive them of their positions.
Moreover the subordination of the small investor in
existing large corporations shows how easy it is for
the official to overpower the democracy, even when
the "democracy" consists of capitalists.

Not only, therefore, is democracy essential if
State ownership and control of economic enterprises
is to be in any degree advantageous to the average
citizen, but it will have to be an effective democracy,
and this will be more difficult to secure than it is at
present, since the official class will, unless very care-
folly supervised* combine the powers at present
possessed by the government and the men in control
of industry and finance, and since the means of
agitating against the government will have to be
supplied by the government itself, as the sole owner
of halls, paper, and ail the other essentials of propa-
ganda.

While, therefore, pubHc ownership and control of
all large-scale industry and finance is a
condition for the taming of power, it is far from
being a sufficient condition. It needs to be supple-
mented by a democracy more thorough-going,
carefully safeguarded against official tyranny^
with more deliberate provision for freedom of
propaganda, than any purely political democracy
that has ever existed.

The dangers of State Socialism divorced from

POWER

democracy have been illustrated by the course
events in the U.S.S.R. There are those whose attitude
to Russia is one of religious faith; to them, it is
Impious even to examine the evidence that all is not
well in that country. But the testimony of former
enthusiasts is becoming more and more convincing
to those whose minds are open to reason on the sub-
ject. The arguments from history and psychology
with which we have been concerned in previous
chapters have shown how rash it is to expect irre-
sponsible power to be benevolent. What actually
happens, as regards power, is summed up by Eugene
Lyons in the following words:

sc Absolutism at the top implies hundreds of
thousands, even millions, of large and small autocrats
in a state that monopolizes all means of life and
expression, work and pleasure, rewards and punish-
ments. A centralized autocratic rule must function
through a human machine of delegated authority,
a pyramid of graded officialdom, each layer sub-
servient to those above and overbearing to those
below. Unless there are brakes of genuinely demo-
cratic control and the corrective of a hard-and-fast
legality to which everyone, even the anointed of
the Lord, is subjected, the machine of power becomes
an engine of oppression. Where there is only one
employer, namely, the State, meekness is the first
law of economic survival. Where the same group of
officials wields the terrible power of secret arrests
and punishments, disfranchisement, hiring and
firing, assignment of ration categories and living
space only an imbecile or some one with a perverted

304

THE TAMING OF POWER

taste for martydom will fail to kow-tow to them," 1

If concentration of power in a single organization
the State is not to produce the evils of despotism
in an extreme form, it is essential that power within
that organization should be widely distributed, and
that subordinate groups should have a large measure
of autonomy. Without democracy, devolution, and
immunity from extra-legal punishment^ the coales-
cence of economic and political power is nothing
but a new and appalling instrument of tyranny. In
Russia, a peasant on a collective farm who takes
any portion of the grain that he has himself growa
is liable to the death penalty. This law was made at a
time when millions of peasants were dying of hunger
and attendant diseases, owing to the famine which
the government deliberately refrained from allevi-
ating. 2

Ill

I come now to the propaganda conditions for the
taming of power. It is obvious that publicity for
grievances must be possible; agitation must be free
provided it does not incite to breaches of the law ;
there must be ways of impeaching who

exceed or abuse their powers. The government of
the day must not be in a position to its own

permanence by intimidation^ falsification of the
register of electors, or any similar method. That:
must be no penalty^ official or for any

well-grounded criticism of prominent men. Much of
this a at present, is secured by party government IB

* Assignment at Utojm* p. 195. * Ibid., p. 492.

M-14
,>

POWER

democratic countries, which causes the politicians
In power to be objects of hostile criticism by nearly
half the nation. This makes it impossible for them
to commit many crimes to which they might other-
wise be prone.

All this is more important when the State has a
monopoly of economic power than it is under
capitalism, since the power of the State will be
vastly augmented. Take a concrete case: that of
women employed in the public service. At present
they have a grievance, because their rates of pay
are lower than those of men ; they have legitimate
ways of malting their grievance known, and it would
not be safe to penalize them for making use of these
ways. There is no reason whatever for supposing
that the present inequality would necessarily cease
with the adoption of Socialism, but the means of
agitating about it would cease, unless express pro-
vision were made for just such cases. Newspapers and
printing presses would all belong to the government,
and would print only what the government ordered.
Can it be assumed as certain that the government
would print attacks on its own policy? If not, there
would be no means of political agitation by means
of print. Public meetings would be just as difficult,
since the halls would all belong to the government
Consequently, unless careful provision were made
for the express purpose of safeguarding political
liberty, no method would exist of making grievances
known, and the government, when once elected,
would be as omnipotent as Hitler, and could easily
arrange for its own re-dection to the end of time.

306 v

THE TAMING OF POWER

Democracy might survive as a form, but would have
no more reality than the forms of popular govern-
ment that lingered on under the Roman Empire,

To suppose that irresponsible power, just because
it is called Socialist or Communist, will be freed
miraculously from the bad qualities of all arbitrary
power in the past a is mere childish nursery psychology :
the wicked prince is ousted by the good prince^ and
all is well. If a prince is to be trusted, it must be not
because he is "good/' but because it is against Ws
interest to be "bad." To insure that this shall be
the case is to make power innocuous ; but it cannot
be rendered innocuous by transforming men whom
we believe to be "good" into irresponsible despots.

The B.B.C. is a State institution which shows what
is possible in the way of combining freedom of
propaganda with government monopoly. At such a
time as that of the General Strike, it must be
admitted, it ceases to be impartial ; but at ordinary
times it represents different points of view, as nearly
as may be, in proportion to their numerical strength.
In a Socialist State, similar arrangements for im-
partiality would have to be made in regard to the
hiring of halls for meetings and the of

controversial literature. It might be found desirably
instead of having different newspapers
different points of view, to have only
different pages allocated to different parties.
would have the advantage that readers would sec
all opinions, and would tend to be less
than those who,, at present, never see in a
anything with which they disagree.

307

POWER

There are certain regions, such as art and science

and (so far as public order allows) party politics 3
where uniformity is not necessary or even desirable*
These are the legitimate sphere of competition, and
it is important that public feeling should be such as
to bear differences on such matters without exaspera-
tion. Democracy, if it is to succeed and endure
demands a tolerant spirit, not too much hate, and
not too much love of violence. But this brings us to
the psychological conditions for the taming of power.

The psychological conditions for the taming of
power are in some ways the most difficult. In
connection with the psychology of power, we saw
that fear, rage, and all kinds of violent collective
excitement, tend to make men blindly follow a
leader, who, in most cases, takes advantage of their
trust to establish himself as a tyrant. It is therefore
important, if democracy is to be preserved, both to
avoid the circumstances that produce general excite-
ment, and to educate in such a way that the popula-
tion shall be little prone to moods of this sort
Where a spirit of ferocious dogmatism prevails, any
opinion with which men disagree is liable to provoke
a breach of the peace. Schoolboys are apt to ill-treat
a boy whose opinions are in any way odd, and
many grown men have not got beyond the mental
age of schoolboys, A diffused liberal sentiment, tinged
with scepticism, makes social co-operation much less
difficult, and liberty correspondingly more possible.

THE TAMING OF POW

Revivalist enthusiasm, such as that of the Nazis,
rouses admiration in many through the energy and

apparent self-abnegation that it generates. Collective
excitement, involving indifference to pain and even
to death, is historically not uncommon. Whore It
exists, liberty is impossible. The enthusiasts can
only be restrained by force, and if they are not
restrained they will use force against others. I re-
member a Bolshevik whom I met in Peking in 1920^
who marched up and down the room exclaiming
with complete truth : "If vee do not keel zem, zey
vill keel us !" The existence of this mood on one
side of course generates the same mood on the other
side ; the consequence is a fight to a finish, in which
everything is subordinated to victory. During die
fight, the government acquires despotic power for
military reasons ; at the encS 3 if victorious, it its
power first to crush what remains of the enemy, and
then to secure the continuance of its dictatorship
over its own supporters. The result is something
quite different from what was fought for by the
enthusiasts. Enthusiasm, while it can achieve certain
results, can hardly ever achieve those that it
To admire collective enthusiasm is
irresponsible, for its fruits are fiercencss 3 war,
and slavery.

War is the chief promoter of despotism,* the
greatest obstacle to the establishment of a
in which irresponsible power is avoided as far as

.*"**, ,,!,, , Jt ,

possible. The prevention of war is an

essential part of our problem I say, the

essential. I believe that, if once the

POWER

freed from the fear of war, under no matter what
form of government or what economic system, it
would in time find ways of curbing the ferocity of
its rulers. On the other hand, all war, but especially
modem war, promotes dictatorship by causing the
timid to seek a leader and by converting the bolder
spirits from a society into a pack.

The risk of war causes a certain kind of mass
psychology, and reciprocally this kind, where it
exists, increases the risk of war, as well as the likeli-
hood of despotism. We have therefore to consider the
kind of education which will make societies least
prone to collective hysteria, and most capable of
successfully practising democracy,

Democracy, if it is to succeed, needs a wide
diffusion of two qualities which seem, at first sight,
to tend in opposite directions. On the one hand,
men must have a certain degree of self-reliance and
a certain willingness to back their own judgment;
there must be political propaganda in opposite
directions, in which many people take part. But on
the other hand men must be willing to submit to the
decision of the majority when it goes against them.
Either of these conditions may fail : the population
may be too submissive, and may follow a vigorous
leader into dictatorship : or each party may be too
self-assertive, with the result that the nation falls
into anarchy.

What education has to do in this matter may be
considered under two heads: first, in relation to
character and the emotions ; secondly, in relation to
instruction. Let us begin with the former.

310

THE TAMING OF POWER

If democracy is to be workable^ the population
must be as far as possible free from hatred and
destractiveness, and also from fear and subservience.
These feelings may be caused by political or economic
circumstances, but what I want to consider is the
part that education plays in making men more or
less prone to them.

Some parents and some schools begin with the
attempt to teach children complete obedience^ an
attempt which is almost bound to produce either a
slave or a rebel, neither of which is what is wanted in
a democracy. As to the effects of a severely dis-
ciplinary education, the view that I hold is held by
all the dictators of Europe. After the war, almost all
the countries of Europe had a number of free schools,
without too much discipline or too much show of
respect for the teachers ; but one by one, the military
autocracies, including the Soviet Republic, have
suppressed all freedom in schools and have gone
back to the old drill, and to the practice of treating
the teacher as a miniature Fiihrer or Duce* The
dictators, we may infer, all regard a certain
of freedom in school as the proper training for
democracy, and autocracy in school as the natural
prelude to autocracy in the State.

Every man and woman in a democracy be

neither a slave nor a rebel, but a citizen^ that is,
a person who has, and allows to a due

proportion, but no more, of the governmental
mentality. Where democracy does not the

governmental mentality is that of masters
dependents ; but where there is democracy it is that of

311

POWER

equal co-operation, which involves the assertion of one's
own opinion up to a certain point, but no further.

This brings us to a source of trouble to many
democrats, namely what is called "principle." Most
talk about principle, self-sacrifice, heroic devotion
to a cause, and so on, should be scanned somewhat
sceptically. A little psycho-analysis will often show
that what goes by these fine names is really something
quite different, such as pride, or hatred, or desire for
revenge, that has become idealized and collectivized
and personified as a noble form of idealism. The
warlike patriot, who is willing and even anxious to
fight for his country, may reasonably be suspected
of a certain pleasure in killing. A kindly population,
a population who in their childhood had received
kindness and been made happy, and who in youth
had found the world a friendly place, would not
develop that particular sort of idealism called
patriotism, or class-war, or what no t 5ii which consists
in joining together to kill people in large numbers.
I think the tendency to cruel forms of idealism is
increased by unhappiness in childhood, and would
be lessened if early education were emotionally what
it ought to be. Fanaticism is a defect which is
partly emotional, partly intellectual ; it needs to be
combatted by the kind of happiness that makes men
kindly, and the kind of intelligence that produces a
scientific habit of mind.

The temper required to make a success of democracy
is, in the practical life, exactly what the scientific
temper is in the intellectual life; it is a half-way
house between scepticism and dogmatism. Truth, it

312

THE TAMING OF POWER

holds. Is neither completely attainable nor completely
unattainable ; It is attainable to a certain degree,,
that only with difficulty.

Autocracy, in its modem forms, is always combined
with a creed : that of Hitler, that of Mussolini, or
that of Stalin. Wherever there is autocracy, a set of
beliefs is instilled into the minds of the young before
they are capable of thinking, and these beliefs are
taught so constantly and so persistently that it is
hoped the pupils will never afterwards be able to
escape from the hypnotic effect of their early lessons.
The beliefs are instilled, not by giving any reason for
supposing them true, but by parrot-like repetition,
by mass hysteria and mass suggestion. When two
opposite creeds have been taught in this fasbion 3
produce two armies which clash, not two parties
that can discuss. Each hypnotized automaton
that everything most sacred is bound up with the
victory of his side, everything most horrible ex-
emplified by the other side. Such fanatical factions
cannot meet in Parliament and say "let us see which
side has the majority 3 '; that would be altogether
too pedestrian, since each side stands for a
cause. This sort of dogmatism must be prevented, if
dictatorships are to be avoided, and for

preventing it ought to form an part of

education.

If I had control of education, I
children to the most vehement and eloquent
on all sides of every topical question, who
speak to the schools from the B.B.C. The
shoud afterwards invite the children to

POWER

the arguments used, and should gently insinuate the
view that eloquence is inversely proportional to solid
reason. To acquire immunity to eloquence is of the
utmost importance to the citizens of a democracy.

Modern propagandists have learnt from adver-
tisers, who led the way in the technique of producing
irrational belief. Education should be designed to
counteract the natural credulity and the natural
incredulity of the uneducated : the habit of believing
an emphatic statement without reasons, and of
disbelieving an unemphatic statement even when
accompanied by the best of reasons. I should begin
in the infant school, with two classes of sweets
between which the children should choose : one very
nice, recommended by a coldly accurate statement
as to its ingredients; the other very nasty, recom-
mended by the utmost skill of the best advertisers.
A little later I should give them a choice of two
places for a country holiday: a nice place recom-
mended by a contour map, and an ugly place
recommended by magnificent posters.

The teaching of history ought to be conducted in
a similar spirit. There have been in the past eminent
orators and writers who defended, with an appearance
of great wisdom, positions which no one now holds:
the reality of witchcraft, the beneficence of slavery,
and so on. I should cause the young to know such
masters of eloquence, and to appreciate at once
their rhetoric and their wrong-headedness. Gradually
I should pass on to current questions. As a sort of
borne louche to their history, I should read to them
what is said about Spain (or whatever at the moment

3*4

THE TAMING OF POWER

is most controversial) first by the Daily
then by the Daily Worker; and I should then ask
them to Infer what really happened. For undoubtedly
few things are more useful to a citizen of a democracy
than skill in detecting, by reading newspapers, what
it was that took place. For this purpose, it would be
instructive to compare the newspapers at crucial
moments during the Great War with what sub-
sequently appeared in the official history. And when
the madness of war hysteria, as shown in the news-
papers of the time, strikes your pupils as incredible,
you should warn them that all of them 9 unless they
are very careful to cultivate a balanced and cautious
judgment., may fall overnight into a similar madness
at the first touch of government incitement to terror
and blood lust.

I do not wish, however, to preach a purely negative
emotional attitude; I am not suggesting all

strong feeling should be subjected to destructive
analysis. I am advocating this attitude only in
relation to those emotions which are the of

collective hysteria, for it is collective hysteria that
facilitates wars and dictatorships. But wisdom is not
merely intellectual: intellect may guide and direct,
but does not generate the force that to action.

The force must be derived from the emotions.
Emotions that have desirable social
are not so easily generated as hate and rage and fear.
In their creation, much depends upon early child-
hood; much, also, upon economic drcumstanccs.
Something, however, can be doae, in the course of
ordinary education, to provide the nourishuimt

3*5

POWER

which the better emotions can grow, and to bring
about the realization of what may give value to
human life.

This has been, in the past, one of the purposes of
religion. The Churches, however, have also had
other purposes, and their dogmatic basis causes
difficulties. For those to whom traditional religion
is no longer possible, there are other ways. Some
find what they need in music, some in poetry. For
some others, astronomy serves the same purpose.
When we reflect upon the size and antiquity of the
stellar universe, the controversies on this rather
insignificant planet lose some of their importance*
and the acerbity of our disputes seems a trifle
ridiculous. And when we are liberated by this
negative emotion, we are able to realize more fully,
through music or poetry, through history or science,
through beauty or through pain, that the really
valuable things in human life are individual, not
such things as happen on a battlefield or in the
clash of politics or in the regimented march of
masses of men towards an externally imposed goal.
The organized life of the community is necessary, but
it is necessary as mechanism, not something to be
valued on its own account. What is of most value
in human life is more analogous to what all the
great religious teachers have spoken of. Those who
believe in the Corporate State maintain that our
highest activities are collective, whereas I should
maintain that we all reach our best in different ways,
and that the emotional unity of a crowd can only be
achieved on a lower level.

316

THE TAMING OF POWER

Tliis is the essential difference between tie liberal
outlook and that of the totalitarian State, that the
former regards the welfare of the State as residing
ultimately in the welfare of the individual, while the
latter regards the State as the end and individuals
merely as indispensable ingredients, whose welfare
must be subordinated to a mystical totality which is
a cloak for the interest of the rulers. Ancient Rome
had something of the doctrine of State-worship, but
Christianity fought the Emperors and ultimately
won. liberalism, in valuing the individual, is
carrying on the Christian tradition; its opponents
are reviving certain pre-Christian doctrines. From
the first, the idolators of the State have regarded
education as the key to success. This appears s for
example, in Fichte's Addresses to the Gsrmm
which deal at length with education. What Fichte
desires is set forth in the following passage :

cs lf any one were to say: *how could any one
demand more of an education than that it should
show the pupil the right and strongly recommend it
to him; whether he folows these recommendations
is his own affair, and if he does not do it, Ms own
fault ; he has free will, which no education can
from him 3 : 1 should answer, in order to characterize
more sharply the education I contemplate, just
in this recognition of and counting on the will
of the pupil lies the first error of education
and the distinct acknowledgment of its
and emptiness- For inasmuch as it admits that,
all its strongest operation, the will
that is oscillating undecidedly between and

POWER

bad, it admits that it neither can nor wishes to
mould the will, or, since will is the essential root of
man, man himself; and that it holds this to be
altogether impossible. The new education, oa the
contrary, would have to consist in a complete
annihilation of the freedom of the will in the territory
that it undertook to deal with."

His reason for desiring to create "good" men is
not that they are in themselves better than "bad"
men ; his reason is that "only in such (good men) can
the German nation persist, but through bad men it
will necessarily coalesce with foreign countries,* 5

AH this may be taken as expressing the exact
antithesis of what the liberal educator will wish to
achieve. So far from "annihilating the freedom of
the will," he will aim at strengthening individual
judgment; he will instil what he can of the scientific
attitude towards the pursuit of knowledge ; he will
try to make beliefs tentative and responsive to
evidence; he will not pose before his pupils as
omniscient, nor will he yield to the love of power
on the pretence that he is pursuing some absolute
good. Love of power is the chief danger of the
educator, as of the politician; the man who can
be trusted in education must care for his pupils on
their own account, not merely as potential soldiers
in an army or propagandists for a cause. Fichte and
the powerful men who have inherited his ideals,
when they see children, think: "Here is material
that I can manipulate, that I can teach to behave
like a machine in furtherance of my purposes; for
the moment I may be impeded by joy of life,
3*8

THE TAMING OF POWER

spontaneity, the impulse to play, the desire to live
for purposes springing from within, not imposed
from without ; but all this, after the years of schooling
that I shall impose, will be dead ; fancv, imarinatioii,

X f t J> (J f

art, and the power of thought shall have
destroyed by obedience; the death of joy wBl have
bred receptiveness to fanaticism; and in the end 1
shall find my human material as passive as stone
from a quarry or coal from a mine. In the battles to
which I shall lead them, some will die s some will
Eve; those who die will die exultantly^ as heroes,
those who live will live on as my slaves ; with that
deep mental slavery to which my schools will have
accustomed them/* All this 5 to any person with
natural affection for the young,, is horrible ; just as
we teach children to avoid being destroyed by
motor cars if they can, so we should teach them to
avoid being destroyed by cruel fanatics, and to this
end we should seek to produce independence of
mind, somewhat sceptical and wholly scientific, and
to preserve, as far as possible, the instinctive Joy of
life that is natural to healthy children. This is the
task of a liberal education : to give a of the

value of things other than domination, to help to
create wise citizens of a free community, and through
the combination of citizenship with liberty in
individual creativeness to enable men to give IB
human life that splendour which some few have
shown that it can achieve.

INDEX

Abeiard, 62

Abu Sophian, 151

Abyssinian War, Bruno Mus-
solini's exploits in, 293 30

Adler, A. JJnder 'standing Human
Nature , 17

Adrian IV (Breakspear) , 62, 63

Aegesta, 95

Afghanistan, 167

Africa, 84, 87, 93> 94

Agathocles, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95

Agrigentum, 89

Akimaton. See Ikhnaton

Albigensian hereticsj 85

Alonaeonidae, 53

Alexander the Great, 22, 39,

91* 94 3 IS 1 * J 33 ^i* *7 2 * |
189

Alexander VI, 96, 98; nepo-
tism of, 69

Amalekites, 248, 249

Ambrose, St., in, 112, 122 ;

America, 38, 73, 81, 83, ioi 3

107* I3 1 * T 3 2 !37 l6 7>
i86 s 197, 200, 209, 223, _
295, 300, 302 ; Constitution
of, 44, 73, 117, 1 68, 184, .
293; candidates for Presi-
dency, 46; Supreme Court
in, 73* 184; oil in, 123, 124 '

America, Latin, 40, 120, 167,
168

American War of Indepen- (
dence, 40 1

Anabaptists, 56, 194, 244; of ;
Minister, 152, 194 |

Anchimolius, 53

Anglo-Persian Oil Company,
123

Anne, Queen, 81
Antonines, 67

Antony, 23 ; defeat of. 98

Apollo, 53, 54

Arabia, 3, 133. 149, 150

Archagathus, 95

Arians, no, in

Aristotelians, 147

Aristotle, 53, 54, 97, 142

Arnold of Brescia, 62, 63

Aryans, 257, 259

Asiatic labour, 129

Aster, 53

Athenian expedition, 7

Athenians, 53, 54

Athens 3 53, 54; Constitution

Attila, 19, 172

Augustine, St., 74
Augustus, 50, 82, 98
Australia, Asiatic labour in,

129

Austria, 187

Austria-Hungary., 145* 223
Avignon, establishment of

Papacy at, 59, 67

Babylon, priestly caste of, 52
Babylonia* 77, 783 i68 5 iBB 9

206
Bagehot's

242

Baluchistan , 171
Barbarians, 57, 74, 79
Barbarossa, Emperor Frede-
rick, 63, 8 1 ; conflict
the Papacy, 64
Basque nationalists,, 154
Bates,, a6

POWER

Bela Kim, 153 !

Belgium, 167

Bendiamism, 103, 265, 294

Bergson, 268, 269

Berle (A, A.) and Means
(G. C.), The Modern Cor-
poration and Private Property >,
25. 9 131, 204, 299-300

Bernard, St., 62, 72

Bismarck, 59

Bolsheviks, 121, 194, 195, 206

Borgia, Cesare, 95, 96, 97, 98

Brahmanism, 55

Breakspear, Nicolas, 62, 63

Bratii, 95

Buddha, 56, 2583 261, 284

Buddhists, 2525 253, 265

Byzantine Empire, 150

Byzantine government, 1 1 1

Byzantines, 133

Caesar, 23, 39, 128

California, gold-rush in, 126;

Asiatic labour in, 129
Caliph, the, 50
Caliphate, the, 150, 151, 183
Calvin, 194, 247
Cambridge Medieval History,

64, 66 n.
Canossa, 59
Canterbury, Archbishop of,

44*45
Capulets, 181, 288

Carthage, 88, 91, 94, 133
Carthaginians, 89, 93, 94, 133
Catholic Church, 39, 4.0, 43,

57, 82, 84, 105, 119, 121,

141, 151, 204, 247
Celibacy, Clerical, 60, 61, 72
Ceres, temple of, 92
Chamberlain, J., 176 n.
Charlemagne, 56, 58

322

Charles I, 77, 192, ^execu-
tion of, 8 1

Charles II, 231

Charles V, 129

China, 24, 40, 43, 44, 45s 55}
107,138, 183,186,188,194,
215,295

Christ, 56, 142, 284

Christadelphians, 109

Christian Scientists, 289

Christianity, Early, 108-114

Chuang-Tse, 252

Civilization, 26, 27, 43, 45,

55. 57, 58, 76, 97, 183
Clement II, 59

Clement V, 59

Cceur de Lion, Richard, 42

Colbert, 80

Colonna, the, 96

Commodus, 191

Communism, 41, 46, 83, 98,

121,128,153,161,177,178,

180,195,227,229,232,275,

290, 307

Confucian classics, 183
Confucius, 240, 285, 286
Congo, exploitation of the, 106
Constance, Council of, 68
Constantine, 109, no, 141,

170, 171, 191, 232,244,287
Constantinople, 57, 152
Co-operation, 120, 236, 283
Copernican astronomy, 142
Coionation Service, English

attitude to, 44
Corsica, 21
Cossacks, 192
Cranmer, 116
Creighton, M., History of the

Papacy, 96

Cromwell, 20, 21, 22, 116,
! 117, 141, 151,208,243,286

INDEX

Cuba, 172
Cyrene 9 94
Cyras, 52, 1 88
Czechoslovakia, 187, 227

Dalai Lama, 43

Damian, St. Peter, 60

Delphi, 53; temple at, 54;
oracle at, 246

Demas, 92

Democracy, 47, 48, 86, 91, 92, ' Francis, St., 7,
146, 191, 194, 195, 197, 198, Franciscans, 64
199, 200,201, 203,2065 207, Franco,

Fascism, 153. 154.1 * 1:6:, 177,
178,209, 210, 225, 227. 2>o

Fichte, 266, 2-Dj 27:, 317

Finland, 250

Five-Year Plan, 1 59 s.

Flaubert's Sa!a^ir:h, 30 ?:

Foreign Office, permanent
officials in, 49

France, 21, 39/81, 154, :,-3*
167, 188, 192, 223, 227, 229

154
208, 209, a 1 1 5 227, 232, 256, Frederick II, Emperor^ 59, 60,

260, 269, 285. 286, 287, 283, 69. 71

294, 293, 2965 305, 308, 31 1 j French Revolution, 2 1 , 22, 39,

312
Descartes, 265

108, 117-122, 152, 209, f
245, 260

Dictatorship, 47 5 48, 49, 97, j French Socialists, 42

120, 194, 201, 270
Dinocrates, 93
Diocletian, 109

Friars, the, 72
Friends, the Society of, 24,
41, 233, 247

Dlodorus, 30 B., 88 3 gin., 92 i Fuggers, tfae 9 24, 129
Dionysius, 88, 89 j

Duke of York Island, 51 ! Galileo, 141 ,142, 147^ 1 63, 284

George I, 81, 241
Economics, orthodox and George, Lloyd, the Pank-

Marxist, no
Eden, Mr., 138
Edward IV, 79

Egypt, 77? I!I J

Great Pyramid in, 77, 78,
1 92 ; Egyptian priests, 44, 52

Eisner, Kurt, 153
Elizabeth, Queen, 116, 222,

290 ; speeches of, 20
Erastianism, 116
Euripides, 250

Fabian Society-, 2;
Fanaticism, I2o a 1493 150*

hursts and, 18
Germany, 57 9 675 79, 82, io5 s
121,129, 134, i35? 3 37^53
157,158,174,178,179,187,

1 88, 194, 207, 3233 225, 227,
2sg s 230, 250,, 293
GlbboiL, nan,., 150^ 151, 170,

234
Gladstone, Mr., 242

Gnostics, 266

Government^ powers and

Forms of, 185-210
Greece, 52, 53, 54. 85, 06, 3?.

88 S 90, 91, 92, 5 3
243

POWER

Greek Church, 57
Gregory VI, 59

Gregory VII. 58, 59, 6o ; 62

Grey 3 Sir E., 138

Grote, 38, 90 n.
Guelphs, 66
Guernica, 33

Haiti, 85.
Halevy, E., 103

Hammurabi, King, 77, 78;

his code of laws, 77, 241
Hannibal, 170, 173, 250
Hanseatic cities, 81: League,

207

Hegel, no, 267, 282
Henry II, 70
Henry III, 59
Henry IV, Emperor, 59
Henry VIII, 71, 110,115, 116
Heraclitus, 269
Herodotus, 53, 54, go* 169
HewinSj W. A. S., 176 n.
Hildebrand, 59, 61, 72
Hindenburg, 37
Hippias, 54
Hitler, 22, 37, 47, 48, 74, 1 15,

120,129,154,181,189,208,

243,272,286,306,313
Hobbes, 190
Hohenstaufen, 67
Holland, 81, 133
Hoistein, Baron, 49
Holy Alliance, 120
Hopkins, E. J., OUT Lawless

Police, 295

Hundred Years War, 79
Hungary, 250

Ikhnaton (Akhneton),
Pharaoh* 52

Individualism, 113, u^

Industrialism, 130, 135, 226

Innocent IV, Pope, 64, 65

lonians, 170

Ireland, 38, 85, 102, 145, 2 83

Islam, in, 121, 149

Italy, 57, 65, 66, 67, 68, 81,
8 2, 85, 95, 96, 97, 99; i 2I>
128, 133, 137,153, 158, 170,

1 74 1 77* 1 78, 179*188,189,

194,201,207,223,225,227,
230

Jacobins, 119

Japan, 45, 107, 138, 153, 181,

1 88, 214, 243; the Shogun

and Mikado in, 76
Japanese, 56, 143
Jefferson, 117
Jenghis Khan, 173
Jerusalem, 152
Jesuits, 194
Jews, 106, 109, 152, 165, 181,

247* 249, 252, 257, 258
John, King, 70
Johnson, Dr., 283
Joshua, 142
Judea, 84

Justina, Empress, 1 1 1
Justinian's conquests in Italy,

Kaiser William II, 49

Kant, 119, 265

Kingly power, 50, 71, 75-83*
184,188, 191,192,241,243,
244; origin of kings, 75;
in Egypt and Babylonia,
77; Greek and Roman
kings, 78; "divine right"
of kings, 81, 85

324

IXDEX

Labourers, Statute of, 130
Lacedaemonians, 53
Lamas, 153
Lao-Tse, 252, 274
Laputa, empire of, 30
Lavoisier, 142
Law, power of ike, 37-30
La\vrence, D. H., 19
Lena goldfields s 125

^V^'i**' p ^ "" * I, f

a *5*.Ti, ^ j ***

Manchester Schcol, rl-*. 2 f : : 3
Manfred, 655 65
Marengo, 21
Marius, q8

* **i

: Marx and Marxists, ID. i/y?,

| 104,105,121,136.141,173,

! 22^, 22 n 217, 2'T7, 2Cu. Jp2

u - v w*~J~AJ'vJI*t>

Lenin, 20, 21, 22, 42, 47, 48, i Matabeleland, conquest of, 22

189, 194, 195, 286 ! Maxell tins, 171
Leo X 5 69
Leonardo; 97

Maximilian, Emperor, 1 29 re,
Medici, 86 S 207

Medicine-mail, 50,, 51, 52

Leopardlj 32 , , _.

Lhassa, Doctor's Degree at f Melanesia, 45, 52

University of, 43 Mere, Madame, 19

Liberalism, 12 1, 122, 1385 Mesopotamia, 171

223, 225, 228, 290, 291, Mexico, 57, 127, 187. K

317

Lincoln, Abraham, 17, 208
Lobengula, 123
Locke, 122

Lombard Leagoe, 63, 81
Lombardy, 63, 64
Lorraine, iron ore of, 124
Louis, St., 8 1
Louis XI, 80
Louis XV, 81
Louis XVI, 192
Louisiana, 167
Loyola, Ignatius, 7

, the, 50, 56, 76
Milan, 63, 82 5 111, 112
Milanese, 60
Mill, J. S., 22E
Milton, 9

Moa\viyah, Caliph, 151 .
Moguls 9 Great, 191
Monamzned, 56, 3, 1

Mohammedan religion^ 50
Mohammedans, 85, 133

252

j Moloch, 94

Luther, 69, 70, 114, 115, 147^ : Monasteries,, of

232

the, 115

Lyons, Eugene, in Monroe Doctrine,, 127,

Utopia, 159-160 n., 304-305 Montagues, 181, ~ nin

Montequieu, r:
Moors, the, 152

Macedonians, 22, 87, 170, i
Machiavelli, 69, 70, 73,

97.98, 134, 2"

237-263
Mosaic Law, 252

y i ? ^ "3 ~ *j~r? - , f |

Magic, 45, 50, 51, 52, 55. ^53 ^l mlcm ^^
^lahomet, 151

Mount Cenis, 17

POWER

Minister, Anabaptists of, 152,

194
Mussolini, Benito, 22, 47, 485

120, l8l,3I3

Mussolini, Bruno, account of
his exploits in the Abys-
sinian war, 29, 30

Nantes, Edict of, 80
Napier, SirW., 154
Napoleon, 17, 19, 20, 21, 22,

56, 119, 120, 154, 167, 177,

189, 193, 207, 208, 243
Napoleon III, 47, 165
Nationalism, 40, 82, 108, 1 13,

116, 117, 122, 137, 176
Nazis, 37, 157, 177, 178, 187,

225, 258, 272, 309
Nero, 122
Nestorians, in
Netherlands, rebellion in the,

152

New Orleans, battle of, 171
New Testament, 56
Newton, 7, 141
Nicholas II, 192
Nietzsche,^, 259,260,269, 272
Normans, 58, 85, 124

Ommiyah, family of, 150, 151

Ophelas, 94

Organizations, 18, 27, 37, 41,
42, 46, 48, 49, 57, 72, 84,
104, 114, 132, 135, 148,
162-188, 197, 205, 213, 215,

217, 2l8, 2ig 3 220., 221, 224,
293, 295, 305

ij Cardinal, 96

Papal election, 61

Parliament, 82, 116, 186, 198,
199, 200, 202, 287, 292

Paul, St., 1 06

Peasants* War, 11471., 115

Peisistratidae, 53, 54

Peisistratus, 53, 54

Pericles, 54

Persia, 123, 134, 150, 170

Persians, 87, 90, 188

Philip II, 189

Philip IV, King, 67

Philippines, 172

Philistus, 89

Piedmont, 171

Pilgrimage of Grace, 116

Pisa, Council of, 68

Plato, 88, 90, 97, 99, 163, 226,
269, 286

Poland, 79

Police system, 295-297

Polish aristocracy, 25

Portugal, 167

Pragmatism, 268

Presbyterians, the, 151

Priests, 50; distinction be-
tween priest and king, 50;
most primitive form of, 50,

5*
Propaganda, 1 1, 36, 48, 62,65,

70, 102, 105, 119, 129, 130,

*33> *35> 138, 139, 140* Hi*
144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 155,

160, 161, 165, 228, 229, 230,
231, 234, 236, 284, 305,

Pagans, 109

Papacy, the, 57, 58, 59 et seq. ;

at Avignon, 59

326

S 1 ^

Protestantism, 41, 68, 70, 82,

83, 116, 118, 119,247
Ptolemy, 94
Puritans, 56
Pythagoras, 142, 284
Pythoness, 53, 54

INDEX

Quakers, 24 ] Shinto religion, 50, 53, loi

Reformation, the, 40, 57, 66, j Sicily, 58^ 87, : s 92, 94, &-,
69, 7> 73> 1 08, 114-117, I Siena, 65, ~

I2 9? ! 75s 2 45
Religion and Science, 257

Rhodes, Cecil, 22

Rhodesian goldfields, 123 j Smith, Adam, 132

Richard I (Coeur de Lion) , 42 ] Social dynamics, laws of, ii

Rights of Man Revolution, : 13

Socialism^ 83, 105, io3, 129,
130, 140, 158, 180, 275, 2C&,

Simony, 59, So,, 61
Simpson, F. A., R& &f

303-304, 33, 307

/, 118

Risorgimento, the a 223
Rivers, W. H. R., Medicine _

Magic, and Religion, 51, 52 n.; ,, Socrates, 90, 91, 97, 99, 253

Social Organization^ 55 IL, ; Solon, 91

Sorel, 233

Spain, 37, 3o 116, i
decline of, 133-134;

S O'T*3 OCA O

Os ^-^j* -a 1 *!! *

76 H.

Robespierre^ 47, 120
Rockefeller, 224

Roman Emperors, 66, 78
Rome, 22, 52, 54, 56, 57,
66, 74, 78, 79, 84, 88, 91,

I70 9 igi, 201, 206 } 209, 243,

287* 3Q?> 3 1 7
Rothschilds, the, 24

Rousseau^ 101, 190

Royal Society, the, 236
Rumania, 135

in, 58; clerical celibacy m,
8 1 ; civil war in, 137, 154
', Spanish Succession^ \\ T ar of

the, 39
Spanish- American War, 168

Sparta s 8S S 90
SpartactiSj 250
| Spartans, 53, 54
Russia, 41, 73, 81,82,93,106, ' Stalin, 120, 12% 138, 243,

io3, 113-1 14 n., 121-122, 258,272,313

Stoics, 2|

125, 138, 141, 154, -. , ^ j

158, 159-160 n., 174, 178, Straiiorci, 299

187, 188, 194, 195, 223, : Stuarts, the, 80, aaa

227, 229^ 230^ 243. 2509 ' Sumer and Akkad, 78

304, 305 S 30

"Sacred* J War, 54

Sahara, the ? 171

Saui s 248, 249

Saxons 3 124

Schism, the Great, 67, 68, 191 Tao,

Seven Years War, 172

Shaw 3 Bernard^ affi

Swift, 161

Sylvester II, Pope, 44

Syracu&aii tyraxiaies, 88

S>Tacnse, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93^

Ta\vney,

247 .

252
1x4-1 15

32?

POWER

Technologists, 30 Ukraine, 135

Templars, suppression of the, United States. See America
67 Urban IV, 65

Tennessee Valley Authority, Ure, P. N., The Origin of
298 Tyranny, 86 n.

Tertulllan, 233 Utica, 94

Teutonic aristocracy, 66; in-
vaders, 133 Valentinian, m, u 2

Teutonic countries, 67, 68 Vandals, 1 1 1

Thrasymachus, 99, 100, 266 Versailles, Treaty of, 127, 192

Thyssen, 129 Vesuvius, 32-33

Tibet, 153, 175 Victoria, gold-rush in, 126

Titus, 152 Vitellozzo, 96

Tolstoy, 26 Voltaire, 161

Totalitarian States, 132, 145, w 6

146, 148, 175, 211, 220, Wars of Reli^on/i 52,161

Wars of the Roses, 79, 116
Webb, Mr. and Mrs. S., 286
Weimar Republic, 230
Wellington, Duke of, 154, 208

3 i7

Trade Unions, 104, 130
Trevelyan, R. C., 33
Trotsky, 272
Tudors, the, So
Tunis, 94
Turkey, 73, 188
Tuscany, 64

Wolsey, 116
Wyclif, 68

S T

A f *
*r i*,

'.<#' :>

M ,f

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